Businesses are increasingly measured through ratings.
Google reviews.
Restaurant ratings.
Marketplace reviews.
Delivery feedback.
Service scores.
The logic is useful. Customers need a way to communicate their experience and businesses need feedback.
But the system is usually one-directional.
The customer rates the business.
The business rarely gets an equivalent way to record what happened from its side.
This becomes particularly relevant in service businesses and platforms where the interaction is between two people.
A delivery worker can be rated by a customer.
A freelancer can be reviewed by a client.
A restaurant can be reviewed by a diner.
But difficult behaviour from the customer may disappear once the transaction is complete.
A mutual rating system could create a different kind of accountability.
That does not mean businesses should be given a tool to punish customers for legitimate complaints. Ratings can be abused by either side. Any system would need clear rules, privacy safeguards and protection against retaliation.
The broader idea is about symmetry.
If platforms want ratings to represent trust, they should consider whether trust is a two-way relationship.
A customer is not automatically right because they are paying.
Payment buys a service.
It does not buy ownership of the person providing it.
That distinction matters in an economy increasingly built around service workers, freelancers, small businesses and platform-based work.
Customer experience should be protected.
So should worker dignity.
A better review system may not be about giving businesses more power.
It may simply recognise that every transaction involves at least two sides.