You gotta know what to do with reviews. I usually don’t read restaurant reviews, and I have the best barber in town so I don’t need to worry about them. By the same token in a world filled with tons of choices it’s handy to get reviews. Last year I went to buy the wife a new apple slicer, hit Amazon to get some books for her too, well if you go over to Amazon and search on “apple slicer” you’ll find yourself in decision crisis because they have 402 of them. How to decide which one, reviews.
I totally check the reviews on any multiple hundred dollar item I’m buying. Generally it’s the reviews that I use to narrow my choices down to 2 or 3 then I check the availability and bang. Of course for that I’m not usually going for the masses, I’m usually hanging around cnet, good review source.
Doctors and cars? OK, I'll check the reviews. Everything else is overkill. People overestimate the value of their own opinions to other people.