“If there’s anything useless for an online store to have, it may just be user reviews. And Apple seems to know that. At some point over the few weeks, Apple quietly removed all product reviews from its online store,” Don Reisinger for Inc.:
Of course, some critics interpret Apple’s decision as self-serving. The company must have taken issue with negative reviews and rather than allow users to speak freely about products they’ve purchased, Apple is instead stopping reviews entirely… But before we immediately go negative here, perhaps we should keep in mind that online reviews are notoriously unreliable. Sure, there are plenty of legitimate reviews where people share their real feelings to help others, but there are also plenty of reviews that are useless, intentionally negative, or anecdotal and in no way reflective of the average person’s user experience.
Worse yet, online reviews are notoriously fake… Suffice it to say that Apple’s move makes more sense than some might think at first glance. And more online retailers should consider following the Apple’s lead.
MacDailyNews Take: What’s to stop Google, Samsung, Spotify, other Apple competitors, Apple-haters, etc. from spamming or hiring spammers to denigrate Apple products on Apple own store pages? Nothing. There’s just no good way to police it. For that reason alone, Apple is smartly leading the way once again. What seems like a nice idea on the face of it is simply a bad idea in practice.