Particularly interesting that quality seems to be dropping in an age where reviews are easier to find than ever.
But there has always been an inherent conflict of interest in the place selling the wares (e.g. Amazon) also being the place hosting the reviews. Similarly for AirBNB - it cannot tolerate all of its own hosts being 2 stars.
I disagree that reviews are easy to find. Things that look like reviews are easy to find.
Actual reviews, where somebody experienced in the domain of the product carefully uses it with a critical eye and accurately reports their findings are surprisingly difficult to find for a great many product categories.
I think this has many causes, one of which are things that look like reviews drowning out actual reviews, making the haystack in which the needle is kept bigger. Part of it is those things reducing the market value of reviews, so that there is less budget available for reviewers to do a good job. Part of it is the peddlers of things not supporting reviewers as much as they used to, because a real reviewer might give them a bad review, where they can easily seek out a thing that looks like a review, but has a much higher likelihood of putting their product in a favorable light.
Even when you find a good review, there are complexities of manufacturing (and some intentional obfuscation) that make it hard to compare products or know that you are buying the exact same thing that was reviewed.
If you buy the same item a year after the review, it may have changed. This could change performance but be something totally innocent, like the factory changing suppliers for a key component.
Another pattern is this: Large retailers buying in volume are able to customize what they buy, so the "same" product can differ depending on where you buy it. Differences can range from harmless things like "exclusive" colors all the up to changes in functionality, cheaper internal components, and so on. Sometimes the model numbers are not changed.
Another approach manufacturers use is to use slightly different model numbers everywhere which makes it hard to make exact comparisons. This is common with mattresses and appliances.
Nowadays reviews are just a paid marketing. Try to find a true review for a new car. Impossible! Everyone will talk about their feelings, not about the car.
Many even not opening the hood to check the motor. Suspension? No info. I'm interested in how complex is the maintenance, how comfortable is everyday trip. Real gas mileage, etc.
> Particularly interesting that quality seems to be dropping in an age where reviews are easier to find than ever.
I disagree, the world has decided that everyone is able to give out a review when it clearly isn't the case. We are distrustful of experts now, because they can be bought (which is true), and are relying on laymen that are much, much worse.
The old days of buying a magazine with experts reviewing something are gone, sadly.
There's more signal than ever but there's more noise than ever too, and you have to be genuinely savvy / expend a non-negligible amount of time to filter the signal out from the noise, because there's a really strong incentive and norm for any platform with a wide reach to be used as a marketing vector.
You can find a review but how do you know it isn't sponsored content or a paid placement? Most likely whatever information you find independently of the product itself will either be a total random person you found on eg reddit (who could be shilling or ignorant) or a "personality" who may have some degree of credibility and knowledge on the subject but who is increasingly incentivized to cash in on that credibility the more they are trusted to advise on purchasing decisions. We're also starting to experience the effects of over a decade of accumulation of dark patterns, increasingly sophisticated and pervasive marketing, SEO and Google's capitulation by clearly designating trusted "winner" websites, and "growth hacks" which individually may not have been noticeable but cumulatively evoke a general sense of enshittification and inability to find genuine information.
I can't trust Google to give me good search results for a search with commercial intent (too many people working too hard to skew the results away from quality), I can't trust blogs or videos from moderately credible sources to be genuinely impartial (not paid with affiliate links, directly for the review, or indirectly by a steady supply of free stuff from the manufacturer), I can't trust that RedditUser1234's comments on the matter (could be guerilla marketing or just stupid), I can't trust reviews on Amazon/equivalent (my own bad reviews have been removed, Amazon lets sellers get away with all other sorts of review trickery).
I'm often pressured to give incorrect quality ratings for unobvious reasons: I give Uber drivers either 5stars or no rating (after speaking with Uber drivers on the effects of ratings).
AirBnB in particular I noticed has little incentives for me to rate truthfully and a variety of incentives for me to lie (e.g. I wanted to downvote the management but I didn't want the staff member to be affected). Enough so that I bought booking.com shares because the AirBnB experience was too often hideous.
But there has always been an inherent conflict of interest in the place selling the wares (e.g. Amazon) also being the place hosting the reviews. Similarly for AirBNB - it cannot tolerate all of its own hosts being 2 stars.