The problem with rating systems

Some people's 3 star reviews are higher than other people's 4 star reviews so reviewing the ratings can often be misleading.

I think the issue arises from some people viewing 3 as the default, the "everything worked, nothing went wrong" rating, reserving 4 and 5 for people who go above and beyond.

Whereas others see 5 as the default and the "nothing went wrong" rating.

I think 3 should be the default personally, as the article says, if you rate everything a 5, what do you do when something exceeds all of your expectations. I think it would help when looking at the quality of a product.

If anything that "does the job" has a majority of 5 star reviews, how can you tell when something really goes above and beyond?

At the moment it seems review systems have one level of good, and four varying degrees of poor.