[Phreaker00]

I agree. As a programmer I never believe this is actual interaction of people but instead random events programmed to show up to spoof activity. There's no way to verify the truthfulness of the data. As a consequence I distrust the website and make an effort to find a different seller.

[hnuser123456]

Yes, but we're not typical customers.

[barbazoo]

Makes it even worse if they find actual people to deceive.

[kulkarniankita]

what would make you trust us? I am asking so I can show more legitimacy as I'm also a programmer and I agree with you

[Phreaker00]

What you're trying to solve is a form of social validation and trust that brick and mortar stores implicitly have: 1. They have to have spent a reasonable amount of money to actually be there; 2. A busy store with lots of people at the registers means there's enough trust to spend money here.

To solve this in a virtual environment you'd need a comparable amount of implicit trust. For #1 it's doable: have a trustworthy domain name. Amazon.com is a lot more trustworthy than look-at-my-shop.tk. For #2 I don't think there's a trustworthy equivalent, since it's either off-site by a third party or unverifiable by users.