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People Believe If 90% Prefer A over B, A Must Be Much Better than B. Are They Wrong?
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this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2025
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Holy shit, I am totally guilty of this.
For those who haven't yet read the article, the idea is that people interpret "80% of people prefer Pepsi Max to Coke" as "Pepsi Max is 80% yummier than Coke", when in reality most of that 80% only slightly prefers Pepsi.
Basically a strong difference in proportion of people who prefer one option to another does not necessarily imply a strong difference in the average opinion between the two.
Same thing with RottenTomatoes ratings. A fresh rating just means the reviewer thought it wasn't terrible, and the "freshness" rating really doesn't say anything about the actual quality of the movie.