That is certainly not off-topic in this context. The horrid behavior (or business model) of TrustPilot is relevant (and immoral), and should be known.
Every time I see one of those "4.2 / 5 stars on TrustPilot" banners, I'll start thinking about the extortion money to keep hiding those negative reviews; what a scam..
The diff between 1.8 and 4.2 business is that the latter sends mass emails to the customers saying "write us a nice review on TrustPilot, and maybe you'll win a $50 gift card". (Although, in case of the app, we just asked nicely, and many people clicked the banner and went on to give 4* or 5* ratings in the store, for free).
Having said that, if company doesn't care about 1.8 rating and has no actions to change, it's probably a bad sign...
I wish I could give TrustPilot a 1 star review right now :-)
Maybe I am missing the context of big businesses, but I will often write a good review of a company (say on trustpilot) I have used, with no reward to myself. Even well known ones. The most recent example being Scan the hardware retailer in the UK. I have though also done it for reward too, so I am not completely altruistic!
I figure that this gives my negative review some credibility, and it also helps the good businesses.
I wonder if actually enforcing this might help things. If someone can't find anything positive to say about five other companies, I don't think I'm interested in their negative review.