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I don't know if this is common outside Amazon India, but for almost every book listing that has any reviews at all, there is at least one negative review solely for the quality of the paper, or the book not being reasonably priced, or the packaging not being sturdy enough, or the "delivery boy"'s rudeness.

Of those, I'd say paper quality matters. For example, if the paper is so thin and brittle that it's hard to read the text or turn the pages without damaging the book beyond legibility, that's a problem.

Now, the worst I've ever encountered are books with pages out of order.

Well the book is separate from the medium, and even just in paper/softcover there are possibly multiple editions available, some with better printing than others. Indian editions are typically cheaper and printed on inferior paper. Regardless I think the common understanding is that the content of the book should be reviewed, not its incidental presentation.

I think it also depends on where your review is.

If you're just doing reviews independent of medium, review just the content. The fact that you were reading a poorly stapled together print out from Jimmy down the hall is immaterial.

If it's more like Amazon, where I'm reviewing this particular item I bought, people should know that the item being sold is of substandard quality and they should get the item elsewhere.

I have several editions of Dune by Frank Herbert. The content is identical in all cases (with the sometimes exception of various forwards); the books differ significantly in presentation. How, as someone who has already consumed the content, am I to know if a particular edition is well made or interesting enough for me to add to my collection?

Maybe you think that is too niche; but Amazon has Amazon-specific versions of some books and also does print-on-demand. Without people reviewing the quality of these things, how am I to know the quality? This also extends to Blu-Ray collections and other things which contain content. Even a Kindle book isn't just the content; how well the book has been formatted matters.

To the extent there is a norm, the norm is that anything related to the thing you are purchasing is fair game; things related to the seller or shipper are not. (Understanding that sometimes Amazon is more than a seller.) If you want reviews specifically of the content, you should go to sites that are specifically for reviewing content.

To the extent there is a problem, the problem is that the star-rating is global for the entire review. I can't give a book 5 stars for content and 2 for book quality. And no matter how good the content, if you're charging me $20+ for a book with pages falling out, you're not getting five stars from me.

I disagree, due to the fact that Amazon is a store that sells books printed on paper. You're reviewing the product as a whole. If you were talking about Goodreads, you'd be 100% right.

I mean the paper _is_ part of the product you are buying, and value for money is definitely in scope for a Amazon review. If you want a purely literary review go to Goodreads!

Amazon's packaging and the delivery boy is pretty funny though.

> Amazon's packaging and the delivery boy is pretty funny though.

Googling 'site:amazon.in "delivery boy"':

- There is no problem with the product,but the delivery boy charged extra 12 Rs,and said it will be adjusted in the next order.

- But delivery boy is very bad. Delivery boy has no manner how to talk with costumers.

- Ur delivery boy was not ready to do door delivery. He called u from the main road asked me to pick. I went to the main road and asked him, y u rnot doing

Reviews of the physical quality of the book are much more useful to me than reviews of the content, by the time I'm looking at it on Amazon. A poorly printed book should get a 1-star review. Packaging or mis-handling, I could even see factoring in (like half the new books I've received from Amazon have had some amount of damage on them, such that I'd definitely have selected a different copy if I'd bought it in a real store). Rude delivery person, maybe not.

The only thing that sucks about it is that Amazon seems to mix around reviews of "the same" book (different printings, possibly even slightly different content since some may be expanded, have different forwards, et c.), plus sometimes ship different products with the same product page, so you can't be sure whether the review that says the binding fell apart or the paper felt crappy was for the same product you'll receive if you press "buy now".

Which would be why I basically only buy books on Amazon if someone gives me a gift card (still safer than buying electronics there). Their product pages at best suggest what you might receive. I continue to be confused at how the shit they pull doesn't put them on the wrong side of several laws.

Strange to say, I ordered a classic paperback science fiction book from Amazon. Shopping image was of a standard pocket book, used. (Imagine del Ray publishing from the 70's.) What arrived, was a Xerox? copied book with a water mark, on American standard 81/2 x11" paper. It was almost unreadable because of water mark. It wasn't a paper back. It wasn't original publisher format in any way. This has happened twice now, in completely different genres. I am dubious of buying any books from Amazon now. Powell's Books instead.

Clearly a seller that was shipping counterfeit books and knowingly committing a copyright violation. Technically Amazon as the 'merchant of record' is liable for this in a contributory way.

I'd say the answer is still straightforward, at least in the example you gave. To me as a customer it doesn't matter if it's the store owner who is stocking the stands or if they rent them out. I walked in to your store, handed you my money and received the item from you. If you're not vetting the producers that's on you.

No, that's on you. There's no standard store operational model. Some are whole chains, others are just endpoints. The onus is on you to check your assumptions if they contain something important (like what you're expecting)

See, it's kind of a trick question. I ask you to rate the shopping experience but you rate the product you bought. Out of nowhere, a really bad shop can have very good reviews because some customers really enjoy the Mars bars.

There's really no mystery in the Podcasts app getting very good reviews, people really love the experience even if the app itself might not be that good.

It's just like happy Tesco customers that enjoy their Pringles and not nerding over the store design. From customers perspective, the store design and the Pringles are not separate experiences.

You were the one that brought up the product quality. But I'd argue that the quality of the product I went home with is part of the shopping experience.

I'm not saying that that's how app reviews should work, just answering your question regarding where the blame should fall in your store example.

> There's really no mystery...

Precisely. The author of the article is certainly not mystified by what is happening, and no-one responding here seems to be so, either. You are not suggesting that the quality of the podcast and that of the app are inseparable issues, are you?

> You are not suggesting that the quality of the podcast and that of the app are inseparable issues, are you?

I am, actually. The experience is the listening of the podcast, how that is produced and how that is delivered are technicalities that you cannot know without investigation or prior knowledge and that is useful only if you are looking into improving or duplicating the experience.

So, it makes sense to me to rate the app based on the podcasts you listened as well us the UI experience. After all, that would be the experience of other people who are about to download the app.

You seem to be saying, not that you find the concerns inseparable, but that you are not being given the opportunity to separate the quality of the podcasts and that of the app in your rating - which is the point of the article.

I don't argue against the article.

...which does consider the quality of the podcast and that of the app to be separable issues.

They are free to consider that. As I said, I don't seek to argue against the article or debunk it or anything like that. The basis of my argument is not the article as a whole, the article can have its hypothesis, I'm not interested.

I think the grocery analogy is a bit strained.

I've never seen a grocery store review mention how good the non-store-brand potato chips or chocolate bars are. I _do_ see reviews regularly mentioning the quality of produce and meat, which stores do have some control over. I think most people who take the time to go to Yelp / Google Maps / whatever and leave a review are aware that they're reviewing the store and not their Mars bar.

The experience using an app is completely different. Here's my dumb analogy.

You're browsing the snack food aisle in the grocery store. You really want a Mars bar, so you pick one off the shelf and go to put in your basket. As you're picking it up, a voice asks you from the heavens: "How much do you like this?"

How much do I like what? The grocery store? The Mars bar? Being asked the question at all?

My guess is that most people leaving 5 star reviews for the Apple Podcasts app had a similar experience. If you just finished listening to a 2 hour podcast that you enjoyed and are greeted with a "rate your experience" pop-up after unlocking your phone, you might be inclined to select 5 stars without thinking about what you're actually rating.

Is this some dark pattern from Apple added to pump up their app ratings? I have no idea. But I do think that the lines are very blurred, intentionally or not, in something like a podcast app. An app certainly _could_ mislead its users into leaving positive reviews.

By this kind of reasoning, web browsers should be held liable for the websites you visit in them.

If they sold access to websites and made a cut from it, yes!

Does Apple sell access to podcasts now?

Yes? Maybe? I dont know. But thats how it was framed in the example given.

It's all about brand power. With the podcasts app, Apple has the brand power not the podcasts, so Apple is who users associate the experience with.

If you bought a Dyson vacuum at Target and it was rubbish, you wouldn't later go to a Walmart to buy a Dyson for your mum because you trust Walmart more than Target (ok, contrived example). However if you go to a store and buy generic products that turn out to be shoddy, you're likely to hold it against the store.

There are a lot of 1-star reviews of the Yelp app which are actually reviews of restaurants.

That kind of says a lot about the people using Yelp though

That's what's going on with the Apple Podcasts users, right? Isn't that what this article is saying? Users are rating podcasts, not the player.

If you've gone through the trouble of downloading the app, and finding a podcast and listening to it, I'd say you're more likely to give it a positive review.

More technically inclined people, who know the difference between the player and the podcast, are probably also more likely to use a different player, like Overcast.

Some people think that the internet is the blue e button on their task bar. Those are the kind of people you just smile and nod. Any attempt at correcting will only lead to confusion, frustration, animosity, being asked to not come back to your parent's house, etc.

No it doesn’t make sense unless people are almost completely illiterate.

The dialog box that randomly pops up is “Rate Podcasts?” and a star widget.

This is exactly what happens. I have listened to a few podcast asking for a 5-star review on Apple Podcast. Most people don't know the difference.