It seems like Airbnb is doing the gamification and manipulating it as well. I’d rather all reviews stay, good and bad and let the consumer decide for themselves. As soon as some reviews get promoted and others hidden I stop paying attention to them
> I’d rather all reviews stay, good and bad and let the consumer decide for themselves
That's not a realistic solution.
If all the reviews were fake 5 stars but it's just the property's friends always leaving reviews then when you got there, you feel there's no way it's 5 stars. But less obvious is property manager says, hey i'll give you a 5% discount for 5 stars, when really the place was a 3-star at best.
Those shifts in star ratings are material in your personal decision making process.
Is there anything currently in place that prevents the 5% off situation? Seems like nobody is able to solve that one. Or wants to tackle it.
Airbnb is incentivized to have higher scores because lower ratings might not push people to other properties - it might discourage them from booking all together. They need them to not be totally worthless, but score inflation is definitively in their best interest.
