I think everyone knows most reviews are bullshit.

Look, you're describing how it should work, and I agree. But how it actually works is far, far different.

No, first the product is introduced with no ads. You sign a EULA that might contain language around ads, but guess what - the EULA is 100 pages long and nobody is reading that shit because we have jobs and families.

The product gets glowing reviews, probably because it's cheap and subsidized by the mega-corp (aka sell product at a loss for market capture). Then, the product enshittifies from under your feet.

There's nothing you can do at that point, because you already bought it. Your "market", so to speak, is 1. You were deceived. You thought you were buying a fridge, but really you were just licensing access to a fridge.

But say you didn't buy it. Even then, you're fucked. There's no trustworthy online reviews, well, anywhere basically. And it's just not reasonable to expect consumers to do hours of research prior to buying anything. No, I should be able to go to the store and ascertain the quality and nature of the product. But I can't, so I get tricked and hoodwinked.

This is all very purposeful. Companies know if they're honest about their products that consumers might look at the competition. So everyone just scams and lies. Even multi-billion dollar multi-nationals are basically running scams at this point. And guess what? All their competition is doing it, too. Because if your competitor is scamming, you have no choice but to be a con artist yourself, lest you become irrelevant.