It's a bad system, but pretty much every other online rating system is uncalibrated too (they just have different social expectations than the "always give 5 stars" that most people use for taxis and deliveries).
There are plenty of things that could be done, like using the algorithm that was developed for Netflix's prize contest, but nobody seems to be doing them.
No system built for a society that (sometimes) values kindness over honesty will ever give you honest answers. My wife still wants to leave big tips when the service is lousy "they're counting on it to be able to make rent". With stars or similar ratings systems, even cheapskates can be kind. Have you ever seen a thread where someone starts talking about "brutal honesty", and how people react to that term?
>If more than 50% of your replies are "this service was above average", then you have a meaningless system.
Only true mathematically if ratings are for internal comparison only. It could be that the service at restaurant A is consistently above average, because the service at restaurant B is consistently below average. Only their aggregate ratings should show it split half and half.
Does anyone know if Uber rescales the star ratings? For example if you have someone like GP who consistently gives out 3s or 4s, do those get rescaled back up to 5s based on the user’s average?
Yes, it's a bad system.