For all those readers who believe in common sense, let me share the incentivized review with you. And especially to those who value living a long and healthy life, you will want to take notes. Anyone with cancer or at high risk should read this. And those who have questions about the vaccine or Ivermectin should take heed.
The incentivized review changes everything. Whether you are selecting a string trimmer or COVID-19 care, you need to beware of the incentivized review.
My recent experience with purchasing a weed eater is illustrative. My gardener broke his foot and was unable to mow my lawn. Worse, he could not cut the grass at my medical office, and before I realized it, some parts had grown to nearly a foot in height.
Not equipped, I ran down to my local Walmart to purchase a weed eater. I found a relatively inexpensive one at $ 118.00. It should do the job, I thought, at least until Garbino’s fracture healed. So, to be sure, I consulted the reviews. And guess what? Excellent 5-star reviews throughout.
198 of the 304 reviews were five stars, which is enough if they were not mostly incentivized. And incentivized means what you might think – that reviewers are in some form compensated for their glowing remarks. Whether through free sample products, discounts, or other forms of payment, the review writers are given perks. And I would imagine that some make a business of writing these. And as you also may glean, they won’t be offered further “work” if their reviews are negative.
I began searching for the “true reviews” of my string trimmer. And they were not as positive as the paid ones.
The first non-incentivized one read,
“I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THIS PRODUCT TO ANYONE. It is basically junk. It is non-returnable. It seemed to work fine at the beginning. My friend helped me with my property and had to fight getting and keeping it going this past weekend. It would run for about 20 minutes and cut off. The line was melting in the trimmer head. Also, the worst starting design of any trimmer I ever owned…”
The non-incentivized reviews were more challenging to locate and buried in a sea of glowing paid comments. But of course, the incentivized descriptions were not to be believed as they were uncredible. For God’s sake, they were paid reviews!
After reviewing a dozen authentic comments that all tended to say the same thing, that the unit was unreliable after the first start, I realized that this weed eater would likely run once or twice if I were lucky, but afterward, all bets would be off.
And indeed, that was what happened. I could start it up without problems at home for a trial run. However, after driving it to my office, it would not start. I thought the engine might be flooded, so I waited ten minutes and tried it again. No luck. I waited 15 minutes and pulled the rope another dozen times. Not even a flicker of starting.
I made the best of it by settling in to do office paperwork. Between the paperwork, I tried to start the trimmer. I tried again every half hour over the next two hours, but with no luck. Finally, when I was about to give up, the engine came to life!
I whacked the highest grass first, and quickly the engine throttled down, nearly stopping. Knowing this was probably my only shot at it; I carefully moved to the medium-growth lawn. I slowed down and took my time not to kill the engine. The machine was noticeably heating up, and I feared it would cut out soon. I sped up and knocked out half the job in less than 15 minutes.
Fortunately, the office has only a tiny patch of lawn. The edges had overgrown, so I turned the unit sideways and edged the sidewalk. The engine throttled down and died while I completed the final portion adjacent to the sidewalk. Success! And I did not care if it ever started again, as I was safe for weeks.
For fun, I tried running it at home the following weekend. I followed all the instructions. Use full choke and 10X priming, and pull the rope 10x. Move to half choke position, prime 4x more, and pull the rope more. No dice. Not even a glimmer.
I read another true non-incentivized review, “Won’t start after a few months. Floods easily. Won’t attempt to start.”
Since then, I purchased a true weed eater, an FS94 R Stihl, and it works every time. It costs almost 4x as much, but it is high quality and the same model my gardener uses.
Now fast forward to the COVID-19 Pandemic and our delightful incentivized reviews on the vaccines – 95% effective – and the reviewers are handsomely paid by various Big Pharma companies.
However, the most glaring incentivized review had to be the negative one Dr. Andrew Hill gave while working with funding through Unitaid through The University of Liverpool concerning his review on Ivermectin.
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