The Review Economy

I’m completely exhausted these days, writing reviews for companies where I’ve spent money for their products and services. It’s a full-time job being a Reviewing Consumer.

I was recently checking out from a restorative four-day stay at a VRBO and was immediately barraged with emails and texts requesting my review of both VRBO AND the property management company.

What? With all the stress of packing up, cleaning the vacation place and getting on the road before check-out deadline, I’m now being asked to, in a sense, “pay” extra for my stay, twice, with my time and my opinions.

It’s a good thing I was driving my own vehicle that day, otherwise I might have had to give a review for my Uber driver and the rental car company, just to get home (where my HOA and county govt. surveys me annually).

A kind of FOMO also kicks in, let’s call it FONR, or Fear of Not Reviewing. What if there’s a secret database kept of people who don’t give positive reviews immediately, a “shadow “downgrade system where brands and institutions reduce the level of service to you based on not playing ball, ie surveying early, often and enthusiastically.

Things are expensive enough as it is. Surveys are part of the “death by 1,000 paper cuts” phenom that reduces our quality of life, and maybe even shortens it.

I’m not sure how to handle this intrusive behavior by brands and orgs., but surely they should have enough examples of you telling them “how they did” so I won’t have to.

Dear reader, if you could kindly rate this essay, from one star to five, and leave a comment, it would be much appreciated.

Jon Obermeyer is a five-star writer, currently staying in a three-star AirBnB (it wasn’t cleaned before his arrival) in San Jose, CA, a five-star city with exceptional public transportation (VTA) and the best airport in the Bay Area (SJC).