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Opinion | Do Not Trust That Stranger’s 5-Star Review - The New York Times
►https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/25/opinion/sunday/five-star-customer-reviews.html

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/05/26/opinion/sunday/26chen/26chen-facebookJumbo.jpg

Bon papier sur les évaluations en ligne.

Stars beget sales. According to an often mentioned Harvard Business School working paper that studied restaurant reviews on Yelp, each added star is associated with a 5 percent to 9 percent increase in revenue. Not surprisingly, then, new businesses have sprung up to exploit the rating system to the seller’s or the platform’s advantage.

Finally, it’s hard to know what the stars even mean. Often times, whether it’s a mattress or can opener or an Uber driver, a five-star rating means “nothing disastrous happened,” said Nikhil Garg, a doctoral candidate at Stanford University. A recent study he co-wrote reported that 80 percent of people gave freelancers hired from an online platform five stars. But when he asked people to choose from different words (“terrible,” “mediocre,” “best possible,” etc.), at least half of the freelancers earned the equivalent of a two-, three- or four-star review.

In the case of hotels, said Dr. Cotte, five stars typically means “everything is what I expected.” I’m assuming this is how the Hampton Inn averaged a five-star rating on my recent search for a hotel in Maine, compared to several luxury resorts that rated only a four.

The experts confirmed what I knew, but resisted, all along. If you really want to find the best product or service for your needs, you’ll need to exert some effort. But it’s also worth remembering that if you don’t, it’s no big deal.

As Dr. Salganik explained, even if a system is gamed, the worst product probably won’t end up at the top of your screen for long; assuming there’s a considerable difference in quality among the options, it will eventually be knocked down. But if the products are pretty similar, then yes, it’s possible that the very best one will actually not float to the very top — though that’s no tragedy either. As Barry Schwartz, the author of “The Paradox of Choice,” argues, if everything is essentially the same, then there’s nothing wrong with ending up with a product that’s the second- or third-best of the heap.

#E-commerce #Evaluation #Avis_utilisateurs

Opinion | Do Not Trust That Stranger’s 5-Star Review - The New York Times
►https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/25/opinion/sunday/five-star-customer-reviews.html

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/05/26/opinion/sunday/26chen/26chen-facebookJumbo.jpg

Stars beget sales. According to an often mentioned Harvard Business School working paper that studied restaurant reviews on Yelp, each added star is associated with a 5 percent to 9 percent increase in revenue. Not surprisingly, then, new businesses have sprung up to exploit the rating system to the seller’s or the platform’s advantage.

Finally, it’s hard to know what the stars even mean. Often times, whether it’s a mattress or can opener or an Uber driver, a five-star rating means “nothing disastrous happened,” said Nikhil Garg, a doctoral candidate at Stanford University. A recent study he co-wrote reported that 80 percent of people gave freelancers hired from an online platform five stars. But when he asked people to choose from different words (“terrible,” “mediocre,” “best possible,” etc.), at least half of the freelancers earned the equivalent of a two-, three- or four-star review.

In the case of hotels, said Dr. Cotte, five stars typically means “everything is what I expected.” I’m assuming this is how the Hampton Inn averaged a five-star rating on my recent search for a hotel in Maine, compared to several luxury resorts that rated only a four.

The experts confirmed what I knew, but resisted, all along. If you really want to find the best product or service for your needs, you’ll need to exert some effort. But it’s also worth remembering that if you don’t, it’s no big deal.

As Dr. Salganik explained, even if a system is gamed, the worst product probably won’t end up at the top of your screen for long; assuming there’s a considerable difference in quality among the options, it will eventually be knocked down. But if the products are pretty similar, then yes, it’s possible that the very best one will actually not float to the very top — though that’s no tragedy either. As Barry Schwartz, the author of “The Paradox of Choice,” argues, if everything is essentially the same, then there’s nothing wrong with ending up with a product that’s the second- or third-best of the heap.

Opinion | Do Not Trust That Stranger’s 5-Star Review - The New York Times
►https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/25/opinion/sunday/five-star-customer-reviews.html

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/05/26/opinion/sunday/26chen/26chen-facebookJumbo.jpg

Stars beget sales. According to an often mentioned Harvard Business School working paper that studied restaurant reviews on Yelp, each added star is associated with a 5 percent to 9 percent increase in revenue. Not surprisingly, then, new businesses have sprung up to exploit the rating system to the seller’s or the platform’s advantage.

Finally, it’s hard to know what the stars even mean. Often times, whether it’s a mattress or can opener or an Uber driver, a five-star rating means “nothing disastrous happened,” said Nikhil Garg, a doctoral candidate at Stanford University. A recent study he co-wrote reported that 80 percent of people gave freelancers hired from an online platform five stars. But when he asked people to choose from different words (“terrible,” “mediocre,” “best possible,” etc.), at least half of the freelancers earned the equivalent of a two-, three- or four-star review.

In the case of hotels, said Dr. Cotte, five stars typically means “everything is what I expected.” I’m assuming this is how the Hampton Inn averaged a five-star rating on my recent search for a hotel in Maine, compared to several luxury resorts that rated only a four.

The experts confirmed what I knew, but resisted, all along. If you really want to find the best product or service for your needs, you’ll need to exert some effort. But it’s also worth remembering that if you don’t, it’s no big deal.

As Dr. Salganik explained, even if a system is gamed, the worst product probably won’t end up at the top of your screen for long; assuming there’s a considerable difference in quality among the options, it will eventually be knocked down. But if the products are pretty similar, then yes, it’s possible that the very best one will actually not float to the very top — though that’s no tragedy either. As Barry Schwartz, the author of “The Paradox of Choice,” argues, if everything is essentially the same, then there’s nothing wrong with ending up with a product that’s the second- or third-best of the heap.

In Baltimore and Beyond, a Stolen N.S.A. Tool Wreaks Havoc
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/25/us/nsa-hacking-tool-baltimore.html

For nearly three weeks, Baltimore has struggled with a cyberattack by digital extortionists that has frozen thousands of computers, shut down email and disrupted real estate sales, water bills, health alerts and many other services.

But here is what frustrated city employees and residents do not know: A key component of the malware that cybercriminals used in the attack was developed at taxpayer expense a short drive down the Baltimore-Washington Parkway at the National Security Agency, according to security experts briefed on the case.

Since 2017, when the N.S.A. lost control of the tool, EternalBlue, it has been picked up by state hackers in North Korea, Russia and, more recently, China, to cut a path of destruction around the world, leaving billions of dollars in damage. But over the past year, the cyberweapon has boomeranged back and is now showing up in the N.S.A.’s own backyard.

#boomerang