Comment by grayhatter

> It should be possible to describe something as “the best thing since sliced bread” without [...]

Possible for you, yes. But I think it's perfectly fine to have a different set of rules for different people based on incentives.

You could bring in a whole team of UX researchers, or a promo copy writer with slightly more originality than sliced white bread. Then they could make a claim or comparison that's trivial to verify. Instead of meaningless obvious (to most people) hyperbole.

You can't lie to people, and must have some evidence to back up any promotional claim made seems like a reasonable rule for people with a financial incentive to lie or be misleading to the possible detriment of others.

But if you're really so offended by such a rule, perhaps the solution is "these claims have not been evaluated by [trade industry group] and this product is not intended to treat or cure any disease, missing feature, required business need or other software bug!" Then you can lie as much as any snake oil salesman.