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nayrocladetoday at 4:25 PM6 repliesview on HN

I always found the "Amazon 4-Star" name funny. Presumably when it was first pitched internally it was called "Amazon 5-Star", then they realised that meant they basically couldn't sell anything, since nothing popular gets a full 5 stars. So they changed it to "4-Star", which just sounds awkward, and lacks the suggestion of top-quality that "5-Star" would. Instead, it's like the "Amazon Not-too-bad" store. I was amazed that they actually went ahead with it.


Replies

eithedtoday at 5:04 PM

When did naming things have to reflect reality? ie it's "Burger King" and not "Bearable Burger"

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giraffe_ladytoday at 4:39 PM

Shoulda just bit the bullet and gone with "4.8-star." I'm sure they talked about it and yeah it's goofy and awkward but it would get the meaning across and maybe show a bit of a sense of humor and that's exactly why they never ever could.

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paulddrapertoday at 4:49 PM

Yeah it’s kinda like a dollar store but instead of focusing on the upside (cost) it reminded you of the downside (quality).

boredtofearstoday at 4:35 PM

Also funny because there are many product categories on amazon where if its not above 4.5 its probably shit

adolphtoday at 5:30 PM

"'Amazon Not-too-bad' store" sounds pretty reasonable. Maybe a too-clever work around for the 5-Star problem would be to call it "100-Star," which would be 4 in binary notation. Or they could call it "5th-Star" since 4 stars is the fifth number of stars b/c the range of starts is zero indexed.

  Ordinal : Cardinal
  1 : 0
  2 : 1
  3 : 2
  4 : 3
  5 : 4
  6 : 5
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