this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2026
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I don't think the star system actually does much, particularly with how it operates per category rather than overall. For example the packet of chips I'm eating right now is apparently 3.5/5 stars. That rating both fails to reflect the actual healthiness of said chips and didn't play any part in me buying them (I'm under no illusion that chips are healthy, I just like eating them on occasion). In fact I can't think of a single time I've cared about the star rating when buying something.
I'd argue that the stars working that way is the optimal choice. People are going to buy chips anyway, they're not going to stop just because every chip bag has 1 star on it. You even admit that in your own comment. That just makes the ratings pointless and is how you get people to ignore all ratings entirely.
The rating should compare how that item compares to similar options so you can see which of those similar options is better. It also incentivizes a manufacturer to make adjustments to their product to compete side by side.
If you had a unified scale of 1-100 instead, you would have the granularity to make comparisons between both similar and dissimilar products.
I'm not really a fan of the system but consider:
Every chip bag is labelled, one is 4 star, one is 1 star, maybe that makes someone pause and make a better choice? They were going to buy a chip bag anyway.
Alternatively you stand before a wall of chips, they are all one star, are you going to not buy a bag of chips?