I have travelled to 30 countries and probably 100+ cities. In the current digital age, our preferences and decisions are determined by a lot of internet research, reading the reviews that gives us a comfort of making an ‘informed decision.’
While information based decisioning is a correct way, the question is how reliable and impartial the information is? I have observed that many platforms that provide curated and segment focused content (hotels, restaurants, tours, doctors etc.) often mix commercial interests with the user generated content. Many a times, the content on the platform, although user generated becomes influencer heave and moderated. In some cases, the user reviews may be tweaked for commercial considerations as well. A hotel may get a better rating if it is a paid member or a platform that lets patients review doctors may de-list a good doctor who hasn’t become a paid user. This phenomenon is not genuinely helping the community.
More and more I researched on this, I felt that the reviews from the Google community (although not as well curated as other platforms) were far more genuine and not commercially influenced. This is what triggered my involvement as a contributor. Over time through a network effect, it will help in enriching the data and the available content and will make it a very reliable platform helping all of us as consumers too.
My only advise to the fellow community of Local Guides would be to always take a balanced view while providing ratings, review comments and not ever be biased towards an individual or a business positively or negatively. If there has been a genuine incident of someone cheating you or doing a con-job, it must also be highlighted for others to avoid getting into a pitfall. If there’s been a safety concern, it must be highlighted in bold and CAPS.
Small and genuine contributions from millions of global users can lead to significant results towards building a better world!
