Agreed. Friends or colleagues who I know aren't materially invested but still have strong opinions are extremely compelling. My usual line of questioning when I have the luxury is to ask what features of $thing they don't like - usually more insightful than pros.
That's interesting. I do something similar with online reviews on Trip Advisor and Amazon: I filter to look at only 1-3 star reviews (or sometimes only 2 and 3 star reviews if there are enough). In my experience, positive reviews are all the same, but negative reviews will give really good specifics. Then you judge just the relative proportion of reviews that are positive vs. negative.
I'm extra wary of TripAdvisor, Amazon, etc -- as I don't know the people making the reviews, and I tend to assume a fair amount of astroturfing. I'm not convinced that they haven't worked out how to game the reviews such that even the lower-rated reviews aren't positives in disguise, in a similar way to those interview questions along the lines of 'What's your biggest weakness?' -- "I am a perfectionist // I work too hard // I care too much // I need to make every project a success", etc.
Typically anyone that bothers to select a thing for purchase will examine all the features and attributes that they consider important, but often overlook the negated aspects that only come from familiarity with the product.
