There was a time, not so long ago, when consumer reviews felt like the only trustworthy sources of product information left on the internet.
A well-placed review could nudge consumers into purchasing just about anything: a hotel room; a skincare product; a vacuum; a granola bar. In the early days of user-generated content, leaving an online review on OpenTable, Google Maps, or Airbnb meant fully participating in the consumer economy; it turned customers into armchair experts, empowering them with a sense of autonomy over their experiences.
Today, that tacit understanding between reviewer and reviewee is crumbling before our very eyes. Social media platforms are flooded with influencer posts sponsored by the brands they’re giving their “honest takes” about; digital affiliate networks like LTK or Amazon Associates muddy the waters even further, because content creators are paid a commission per sale — essentially incentivizing them to say nice things about a particular product or company. Blog entries are largely written by AI, and shocker: they all say virtually the same things. Critics argue that Google has intentionally made its own search function worse so that we stay on its site for longer, clicking page after page of nonsense in the hopes of finding something real.
Consumer reviews once felt like the last frontier: a safe place where you could read what actual customers had to say about a clothing brand, restaurant, or wellness service before deciding if you wanted to spend money on it yourself. But that safe place is gone.
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