Thursday, December 29, 2022

Abstruse Amazon Authors

Question of the day: why would someone take the time to post an online response to a question with the answer "I don't know" or "I'm not sure" or "I've never tried that" or any of the other myriad unhelpful, unnecessary, non-answers that typically appear in the Q/A section of Amazon product reviews?

It really shouldn't require explanation but the default response to every online question ever posted is "I don't know".  One can easily assume the reason the poster posted their question is that they already didn't know the answer.  Further, "I don't know" is effectively and unambiguously implied by not responding!  There are presumably billions of people that don't know if the hard plastic handle of that skillet can withstand a 450 degree oven without melting.  Unless you are a renowned expert on hard plastic skillet handles and your ignorance is significant, the world does not require your non-response.

Save the effort, the internet bandwidth, the time of a content moderator, the digital storage, and the time of every single eye-rolling reader who has to read and then consciously erase your response, and just do like the vast millions who also don't know... absolutely nothing.

And in case you're feeling clever, I'll beat you to the punch and answer my own question:

I don't know.