My (perhaps too) honest answer: Because I'm reviewing the purchasing experience, not just the product. Same as when I review a restaurant, I'm reviewing the service and food, not just the food. Even now that I've learned there's a separate area to review the seller, I can barely be bothered to leave one review, so I'm likely not going to take the time to leave two. Honestly, they're lucky I'm even leaving one honest review, since I'm under no obligation to do so. And like others, I've had my critical reviews get deleted, and I've even received emails from Amazon with vague threats about them, so they really don't encourage me to care much.
Imagine leaving a bad review for a restaurant because it was raining outside or your Uber took you to the wrong restaurant. That's basically what you're doing when you're giving a review on "the purchasing experience" on Amazon.
Everyone on earth knows that it might rain during your dinner, just like everyone on earth knows that packages get lost sometimes or the UPS driver might drop your TV. It's not useful or fair to the product's company or restaurant to leave these kind of reviews.
> That's basically what you're doing when you're giving a review on "the purchasing experience" on Amazon.
No, it's not.
> that packages get lost sometimes or the UPS driver might drop your TV.
I would never leave a bad review for those types of things, since they're not in the sellers control. I'd knock a star off if delivery was delayed because it didn't ship on time though, which has happened on more than one occasion.
> I'd knock a star off if delivery was delayed because it didn't ship on time though, which has happened on more than one occasion.
That's the point! You don't knock a star off a product because they didn't ship the product in time. You knock stars off the SELLER. There's literally a whole system in place to review the seller.
And if the seller is Amazon, it's even worse. Why would I care about whether or not Amazon was able to ship your product in time 3 months ago?
> There's literally a whole system in place to review the seller.
> Why would I care about
As I said, the world (Amazon, manufacturer, potential buyers, etc.) is lucky that I took the time to provide them with the opportunity to consider my opinion in the first place, so I'm certainly not going to take additional time out of my day to leave a secondary review, and I'm certainly not going to concern myself with what others care about my honest reviews.
