Why we publish what we don’t check
The limits of a marketplace are part of the product.
We check that a licence number is on file and that it matched the Registrar the last time we looked. We check that an insurance certificate was uploaded. We check that a review belongs to a closed job. We measure reply time from messages, not from a field the professional typed.
We do not check whether the work was beautiful. We do not stand in the attic. We do not know if the person is kind to their crew, or late, or the best in the city at tile. That is what the reviews are for, which is why they are gated. A marketplace that implies it has inspected the workmanship is selling a feeling.
The clay-colored note on every profile — “What we don’t check” — is the sentence we don’t want a designer to delete because it looks negative. It is the product.