NEW - Smart Speakers: The 3.8 Restaurant Might Be the Best One on the Block

Shane Hewitt and The Nightshift · Mar 19, 2026 · 19m

Fake online reviews tell you less than you'd think, and the surveys that were supposed to fix the problem are built the same way. Before a one-star answer makes it anywhere public, a business can subscribe to a system that reroutes it. Good ratings post. Bad ones get managed. The feedback you never saw might be exactly the feedback you needed.

Somewhere along the way, five stars stopped meaning excellent and just started meaning safe. The restaurant with a 3.8 might be the best one on the block, but the algorithm doesn't know that. A 4.9 on a charging cord from Amazon might come with a…