Exactly. If you don't advertise what is good or bad through word-of-mouth and true reviews then the primary method of learning and evaluating productions is paid marketing. As you may suspect the opinion given by paid marketing is not reflective of product quality. This means that product quality has very little influence on market selection and we end up with tons of crap like we do now.
Information from trusted independent sources is the most useful tool we have to actually incentivize the market to actually create quality products that actually provide value to their users.
Word of mouth is great. In my opinion its the most trustworthy form of product review. However I've noticed more and more companies advertising via 'word of mouth' they call it guerilla marketing and in my opinion its disgusting and a violation of internet users trust. Reddit is absolutely filled to the brime with this kind of marketing.
Information from trusted independent sources is the most useful tool we have to actually incentivize the market to actually create quality products that actually provide value to their users.