I really don’t understand this. There are plenty of successful 2-star and 3-star restaurants. I’m not talking about Michelin 3-star, but the 3 (out of 5) stars from the local newspaper. The fact is, I never trust 5-star ratings. If someone isn’t griping about a particular business (on Yelp) or book (on Amazon), you have to wonder whether the reviews are written by insiders: friends and family members. I certainly do. That’s how much trust you should give to online reviews. I think businesses should be glad that they can receive feedback from their customers. You can acknowledge or ignore the feedback, but at least it’s there. If you don’t have a feedback loop, you can’t even understand why your business is stalling because while a lot of polite customers may not “gripe” to your face, they will certainly tell others –online or off — if their experience has been less than stellar.