Vox: “Whether you’re looking for a new TV or the best bagel in Brooklyn, you’re bound to come across online reviews, and it’s hard to find something that feels trustworthy. There are a lot of reasons why this is true, and it doesn’t look like the situation will get any better soon. Despite regulators and tech platforms’ best efforts, the billion-dollar fake reviews industry is too big and complex to stop, as the New York Times reported this week. Meanwhile, professional review sites aren’t as useful as they used to be. More and more of them seem like they’re chasing search words and affiliate marketing revenue rather than serving the readers’ best interests. (Affiliate marketing represents the special links to buy a product in a review, which give the media company a commission when the reader clicks through and purchases that thing. Vox Media, which owns Vox, does this, as do many other media companies, including the New York Times.)So in an absence of authenticity and authority, where does an industrious internet user turn? Reddit, of course. Sometimes known by its old slogan “the front page of the internet,” Reddit is most valuable for the knowledge collected in its very specific, often obsessive communities called subreddits. This is where you’ll find lots of real people with helpful things to say about the stuff you’re thinking about buying or the bagels you’re considering eating. And it doesn’t take much to tap into the Reddit hivemind. Just try tacking “reddit” onto the end of a Google query (e.g., “best white noise machine reddit”). You’ll quickly find quite a few other internet users with the same question, dealing with the same set of frustrations over the lack of reliable information in the traditional product reviews ecosystem…”