I have seen the argument that Fandango puts their thumb on the scale for reviews on its own site (e.g. rounding a review average of 4.1 to 4.5 and having almost no averages under three stars etc.). And it makes sense, their business is selling tickets so why would they want you to think a movie is bad. Now that they are buying Rotten tomatoes, do you think their philosophy of leaning toward the positive will carry over (and ruin) that site or do you think they will let that site be and just make use of it as a resource separate from (but connected to) the main ticket selling site?
Considering what happened to Jump The Shark, I’ll put on some sackcloth.
Amazon’s business is selling you goods, so why would they want you to think they’re bad? The answer is actually kind of obvious: you’re going to buy something, so if they can steer you towards a higher quality thing, you’re more likely to have a positive experience. I don’t see why this would be different for Fandango.
And they won’t lose money on the return of crap products.
Fandango won’t make a refund if you hate a movie.
Point taken. But are you really not going to go to a movie because there’s a poor Fandango review? Or would you just go to a different one?