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Again, all you need to do is READ the review. Problem solved. What it all comes down to is that you don't want to actually read the comments.
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I feel like this argument is disingenuous. A given book on Amazon has hundreds of reviews - this meme that people who don't want to wade through Kindle bombs are *just lazy* needs to stop. It's perfectly appropriate to complain about "noise" in the reviewing system - not everyone has the time to look for the one useful 1-star review in a haystack of "have you noticed there's no $9.99 Kindle version yet?!".
Here is an example of a Kindle bomb book:
http://www.amazon.com/Game-Change-Cl...pr_product_top
There are 700 customer reviews on this book, over 200 of which are 1-star reviews. That's over 20 *pages* of 1-star reviews alone; it's 70 pages of review total. The book itself is 480 pages - by the time you finish reading the Amazon reviews, you could have gotten 15% through the actual book!
Of the 21 pages of 1-star reviews, pages 5-21 are almost entirely Kindle bombs. Here's just the last page of 1-star reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Game-Change-Cl...&pageNumber=21
My "favorite" review quoted (in part) here:
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I really wish this book were available on Kindle. I would have bought it 60 seconds ago and be reading it right now.
I've read several reviews and an excerpt from this book on other Web sites -- it sounds really good. I am anxious to read it ASAP.
But frankly, I have no desire to go out in the cold and use the small amount of expensive gas in my car to drive to my local book store, which is almost 20 miles away.
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The entire rest of the page is all of that and more.
Of course, there IS a Kindle version of this book - $9.99, even! - but it didn't come out on the exact same day as the hardcover, so here we are. Since I actually followed this particular Kindle bomb in "real time", I can almost swear as a fact that none of the Kindle bombs were cleaned up after the $9.99 Kindle version came available - far from it! The mentality on the boards is that the Kindle bombs need to stay up to "show HarperCollins a lesson". Meanwhile, people who want to see a combined star rating that actual reflects the value of the book are S.O.L.
The point that I think the "No Kindle Bomb" crowd wants to make is that reviews are not for protesting. I hate to invoke the "slippery slope" argument, but how can reviews ever be meaningful and helpful if they are buried under waves of protest comments by people who haven't used or even SEEN the product firsthand?
If everyone gives all Kindle books 1-star for not being cheaper than the paperback, or available on the same day as the hardcover, or for not being free, or whatever, then the 1-star rating becomes meaningless. If everyone gives Kindle books 5-stars for being free, then again, the system is useless as a product comparison tool. I'm currently boycotting HarperCollins right now because of their ridiculous forced obsolescence library meddling, but I wouldn't consider it an appropriate use of the review system to start crafting reviews for books I've never even seen just because I'm P.O.'d at HarperCollins.
I feel for people who want a public forum to express their grievances. That's part of why Amazon has customer forums set up for EVERY product on their site. And that's part of why those forums are listed on the product page, just under the spotlighted reviews, so that customers can see what people are saying about the book OUTSIDE the reviews.
(For example, the forum for the book discussed above is here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/forum/cd/fo...sin=0061733644)
People can and do use star ratings when browsing books. Those ratings shouldn't be rendered meaningless just because a book isn't on the Kindle. And frankly, the fact that those review still exist at this point makes me think that the issue was less about getting a Kindle version (that I'm SURE they all rushed out and bought like they claimed they wanted to) and more about feeling the rush of putting poo on someone's porch.
That's my opinion, though. I'm very passionate about reviewing.
