Many people have come to take this kind of review shopping for granted. We hunt routinely for the rating of a book on Amazon or a restaurant on Yelp or a digital camera on CNET. It’s an obvious thing to do, right? But this “obvious” behavior shows wisdom. Because when we make decisions based on reviews, we are acknowledging two things: (1) Our ability to glean the truth about a product is limited and subject to distortion by the company that makes it; and (2) For that reason, we are smarter to trust the averages over our own impressions.
