I've thought about this quite a bit, and my conclusion is that the ultimate missing component here is trust. I don't trust star reviews, they can be bought, and platforms don't care about that too much as long as they're making good money.
I trust three things: Recommendations from competent acquaintances, actually good review sites, and brands I've been happy with in the past.
My acquaintances and the review sites I frequent are pretty niche. If they weren't so niche, they'd probably inevitably become corrupted and promote the offering of whoever pays the most. I think it would be amazing if this could be scaled without the corruption, but I don't know how.
That leaves the brand recognition as the one thing that scales. And that mostly happens through marketing. You hear about something and eventually build enough trust to invest, and if the offering is good, you found a good supplier and they found a potentially loyal customer. I think that mechanic isn't so bad, though far from ideal.
I trust three things: Recommendations from competent acquaintances, actually good review sites, and brands I've been happy with in the past.
My acquaintances and the review sites I frequent are pretty niche. If they weren't so niche, they'd probably inevitably become corrupted and promote the offering of whoever pays the most. I think it would be amazing if this could be scaled without the corruption, but I don't know how.
That leaves the brand recognition as the one thing that scales. And that mostly happens through marketing. You hear about something and eventually build enough trust to invest, and if the offering is good, you found a good supplier and they found a potentially loyal customer. I think that mechanic isn't so bad, though far from ideal.