Five Stars and Full of Shit

How Amazon buried the referees, gamed the trust, and made you the sucker

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, you could find a product on Amazon, read the reviews, and get a decent idea whether the item was quality or junk. Then sellers started gaming the system—flooding product pages with glowing, bogus reviews. Five stars for garbage. Verified purchases for knockoffs. Suddenly, the review section felt more like a rigged carnival game than a trusted guide.

Thankfully, referees emerged: Fakespot, ReviewMeta, a few others. You could plug in the link and see that all those rave reviews were either legit—or complete bullshit shoveled up by some unscrupulous seller.

I relied on Fakespot for years. It saved me from junk. Until now.

Fakespot didn’t just disappear. It was acquired by Mozilla—an outfit that still clings to the idea of an open, user-first internet. But now even they are sunsetting it. ReviewMeta is also dead in the water. TheReviewIndex barely loads. One by one, the referees have been shoved off the field.

And here’s the thing: it wasn’t just neglect. Amazon sued Fakespot back in 2021. Claimed it misled consumers. Pressured Apple to remove it from the App Store. Called it a security threat—because God forbid you know that 80% of the glowing reviews for that portable blender came from bots in Bangladesh.

Amazon’s in a tight spot. They want you to trust the reviews—but not too much. If third parties call out the fraud, it undermines the entire model. So they choked the tools that did exactly what Amazon wouldn’t: shine a light on the scam.

What we’re left with now are “AI-generated review summaries” that Amazon creates itself. The fox writing a newsletter about how the henhouse is totally fine.

Amazon’s not dumb. They know a lot of the stuff sold on their platform is garbage wrapped in five-star lies. But instead of fixing the problem, they offer you a shortcut around it: Just return it.

Wrong size? Doesn’t work? Turns out your “premium” coffee grinder is a hollowed-out pencil sharpener from Shenzhen? No problem. Drop it off at Kohl’s. No box, no label, no questions asked. In some cases, they’ll even let you keep the item and still refund you. It’s fast, it’s painless, and on the surface, it looks generous.

But it’s not generosity. It’s a business strategy.

Amazon has decided it’s cheaper to let you return crap than to clean up the crap before it hits your doorstep. It’s the retail version of “ask forgiveness, not permission.” You’re no longer a valued customer—they’ve made you the final filter. The last quality control checkpoint before the landfill.

And the worst part? We’ve accepted it. We shrug, send it back, and try again. We’ve internalized the idea that post-purchase regret is just part of online shopping now. A feature, not a bug.

Sure, you can send it back—as long as it's within the return window. But what happens when that nice air fryer shits the bed after the window closes? You didn’t see it coming, because the reviews were sterling. Verified. Glowing. Fake.

That’s the quiet scam. You didn’t just lose $49.99—you lost time, trust, and maybe a little bit of faith in the system. And Amazon’s counting on the idea that you’ll just move on. Try again. Buy another one. The churn keeps the engine running.

But zoom out, and this isn’t just about shopping. This is what happens when referees disappear. When we no longer trust the information gatekeepers, or worse—when the gatekeepers become the sellers themselves. It's not just blenders and earbuds. It’s news. It’s elections. It’s medicine. It’s reality.

We’ve entered the age of Choose Your Own Truth™. Don’t trust the news—trust the influencer. Don’t trust scientists—trust the guy with a ring light and a YouTube channel. Don’t trust Fakespot—it’s gone anyway. Just trust the algorithm. The one that answers to no one.

I remember when Jeff Bezos was considered a visionary. He bought The Washington Post and, for a while, left it alone—hands-off, like a benevolent overlord who just wanted to support journalism. Until he didn’t. Elon Musk was the genius who launched rockets and electric cars, not tirades and conspiracy memes. These were the guys who were supposed to be building the future—not trashing the referees and shouting at the crowd.

But somewhere along the way, they morphed into something else: tech bros who believe they alone should decide what’s true, what matters, what stays, and what dies. Is it a coincidence that Fakespot and the rest are disappearing just as these men consolidate power over the platforms we rely on? I doubt it.

Their new business model isn’t about empowering users. It’s about controlling the narrative. Own the media. Own the marketplace. Own the scoreboard. And when no one’s left to blow the whistle? That’s when the real game begins.

There used to be people—actual humans—whose job it was to call balls and strikes. They weren’t perfect, but they weren’t working for the hitters, either. Now the umpire is Amazon. Or Meta. Or TikTok. Or Elon.

And we’re still in the batter’s box, swinging blind.

So here we are. The product arrives. It’s got five stars, 6,000 reviews, and a brand name you can’t pronounce. You squint at the listing, half-expecting to see a watermark that says “As Seen on Fakespot.” But that little green letter grade is gone.

You’re on your own.

Now, I scroll past the five-star fluff. I read the three-star reviews—the ones that say, “It mostly works, but...” I look for typos, for real photos, for the one guy who says, “I bought this three months ago and now it smells like burning plastic.” That’s my guy. He’s the new referee. Or maybe I am.

Because in this new economy of smoke and mirrors, you are the quality control department. You are the last line of defense between your wallet and a pile of cheaply made crap disguised as a deal. You are the reviewer, the researcher, the umpire, the skeptic.

And I hate to say it—but until someone builds a better system (and Amazon lets them live), you’d better keep your whistle handy.

The game isn’t fair. But at least now, you know the score.

And as for me, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the nice-looking patio solar table lamp I got on Amazon from that household name, Dakaful, lasts more than two months.

🎙️ Bonus Voiceover: “The Whistle’s in Your Hands”