As you note, the idea of good&#x2F;bad is often highly subjective.<p>If one baker is actually bad across the board, they will eventually go out of business.<p>But often what happens is segmentation: one restaurant meets the demand for authentic Thai, and one satisfies the demand for Americanized Thai. Which is &quot;better&quot;? It&#x27;s in the eye of the beholder. Broad rating tools like Yelp end up illustrating the mix of opinions in the population, rather than an objective &quot;good&#x2F;bad&quot; scale. If half of customers like authentic Thai, and half like Americanized, then both restaurants will have middling ratings given a random mix of customers.<p>This highlights the real purpose of advertising: to enable market segmentation. An action movie with a terrible plot and characters will emphasize the action in their marketing, to attract people who like action. Critics, who tend to prefer original stories and complex characters, might pan it--who cares? The people who read movie reviews are themselves only a segment of the market.