I am about to move networks for my phone contract, so I look around the networks that I can choose, look for coverage and comparison between prices as techonoligies are changing pretty rapidly. (Usually go for the cheapest possible as I am a student, by I understand cheap isn't always best). Details.
On my search, I found that the only reviews I could find were from horrible public review sites, whereupon people only go if they want to complain about something. It's completely understandable that people are more likely to leave a negative review of something, rather than a good review if everything is ok. As Linus often points out in his videos, people only tend to go on support forums if they have a problem, which is why you see a disproportionate amount of people complaining about products.Apart from what I would think is a small minority, who(not in the retail/reviewing business) would go on a website talking about their product and service that met their expectations?
Going back to the reason that this came to mind, phone networks. I have been with many phone networks, never really having any complaints with any of the networks, for some reason I decided to check out the reviews, and found not one site where the average of customer reviews was over 2/3 stars out of 5, for any of the networks here in the UK. Do you think this is due to the nature of phone companies, selling a service rather than a product? I would think similar results would occur if your electricity/gas companies were reviewed in the same manner. Or perhaps because they really are all shite services?
Hopefully this is coherent enough for you to read, and at least grasp what I am trying to say.
How much credibility do you give the general public when it comes to reviewing products/services?