131–140 of 235 posts
There is similar situation in the diamond engagement ring market, of all places! NiceIce, Beyond4Cs, Yourdiamondteacher, ProsumerDiamonds -- all affiliate marketing blogs that drive a lot of sales. No lawsuit yet to reveal the inner workings, but undoubtedly there is the same shadiness.
The whole jewelry diamond market is shady and should be boycotted. It is a shame that many still fall for the marketing and think diamonds are rare
Amazing to see people stumbling upon millions. Most techies are trying to come up with clever technical solutions to try and build an online business. Whilst elsewhere there are people making millions from reviewing mattresses. Or whatever the next accidental hot market will be.
I'd say affiliate marketing is more of a modern "lemonade stand" business, just like youtube/twitch videos, game programming, and app development. There's an extremely low barrier to entry and it gives you an ideal place to hone business skills, but odds are you won't make enough to cover the cost of hosting a website.
Now this made me thinking of other online review sites. Are they all like that? I couldn't give an honest review, if I get more money from B than A. So if they state otherwise, I call it fraud And I know that's what people call marketing in general and there might be some truth in it - but that's why you go to these review site to get a neutral view. So normally the customer should pay the reviewer, he is doing work…
This is how the entire affiliate industry works. Content curators will generally pick the most profitable products to promote, not always but most of the time. I tried to explain that here to the HN crowd that the wirecutter reviews fall into the same affiliate bias but got downvotes to hell. The mere fact that most of their products point to amazon should tell you that they cannot possibly claim to give an honest re…
I will note that for many products, they have recommended items not sold on Amazon, even over competing products that are available for sale on Amazon.
And let's face it: when Amazon sells the majority of goods most people are likely to buy (and that you are likely to review), "affiliate bias" isn't really that big of an issue because it just means you're comparing one Amazon product against another. At that point, the primary bias would be from recommending the most expensive product available on Amazon, thus earning the highest commission. And Wirecutter/Sweethome definitely doesn't do that.
The whole mattress industry is a scam. Actual manufacturing cost is $75-$300. Mattresses are even cheaper on Alibaba. Vacuum-packing memory foam shrinks mattresses for shipping, and now they can be imported easily. If you really want to annoy the US mattress industry, set up a review site and review sub-$100 mattresses off Alibaba. (Personally, I have an air bed which cost about $200.)
Blows their mind.
Why is everything a "war" in the American media? war on obesity, war on diabetes, war on this, war on that...? It is just businesses competing to sell products - maybe a little too interested in suing, but business nevertheless.
A lot of narrative here in America eventually turns into good vs. evil, and War on X is an example of that. I've heard people attribute this to anything from religion, to the revolutionary origin of the country, to military-industrial conspiracy.
[1]: http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo3637992...
The whole mattress industry is a scam. Actual manufacturing cost is $75-$300. Mattresses are even cheaper on Alibaba. Vacuum-packing memory foam shrinks mattresses for shipping, and now they can be imported easily. If you really want to annoy the US mattress industry, set up a review site and review sub-$100 mattresses off Alibaba. (Personally, I have an air bed which cost about $200.)
Yeah, and the whole web app industry is a scam, actual bandwidth cost is like a penny. And servers are even cheaper in Russia. (Personally, I run my website on a shared php host for about $1) -- Snarkiness aside, it's surprising to see comments like this here.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a brand on Amazon (Zinus) that sells reasonable quality foam mattresses with low markups. I bought their Queen [0] for $289, and have been happy with it. I'm assuming that Amazon will also eventually introduce an Amazon Basics version and suck up all the profit... [0] - https://www.amazon.com/Zinus-Memory-Green-Mattress-Queen/dp/...
I bought a California king from Zinus, they sent me two of them, and didn’t want the second one back. I paid less than 300, and now my parents have a free mattress too. One gripe was the lack of warnings on the box. I accidentally punctured the plastic trying to drag the package into my bedroom and one puncture was like a deploy mechanism that left me trapped in a door way as the mattress slowly inflated on me. We la…
The business models for pricing aggregators and reviews sites are completely absent. Even Consumer Reports struggles to meet the costs of testing and staffing. The BBB is a mess. The "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval" hasn't meant anything for decades. It's a sad state of affairs: We all want unbiased reviews, but we won't pay for them. We all want to know the spread of prices so we can balance service/trust with c…
I recently decided to get a Consumer Reports subscription after not having one for 10 years. I used it to find the absolute BEST dishwasher.
But because their rating system is a little strange, and they don't exactly tell you BUY THIS, DONT BUY THAT, I ended up with a Dishwasher I hate. It was the most expensive, and best according to CR, but I cannot express how miserable this piece of junk makes me.
Then I look at the FREE reviews on Amazon, where I see many people who have the exact same issues as me. Why did I pay for Consumer Reports? According to their "tests" this dishwasher might last 20 years or something amazing like that, but for what I care about it sucks, its hard to use, and it doesn't dry dishes AT ALL.
I want to fund unbiased reviews, but I also need Consumer Reports or others to step up their game on providing information that is actually useful and changes my experience as a buyer.
Why is everything a "war" in the American media? war on obesity, war on diabetes, war on this, war on that...? It is just businesses competing to sell products - maybe a little too interested in suing, but business nevertheless.
The whole mattress industry is a scam. Actual manufacturing cost is $75-$300. Mattresses are even cheaper on Alibaba. Vacuum-packing memory foam shrinks mattresses for shipping, and now they can be imported easily. If you really want to annoy the US mattress industry, set up a review site and review sub-$100 mattresses off Alibaba. (Personally, I have an air bed which cost about $200.)
Personally I question visco-elastic foam. Sure, it's cheap and may be ok for a lot of people, but I personally sleep better on an standard spring bed. Foam mattresses don't breathe, they stink (some mattress I've seen are 1+ yr old and continue to stink) and aren't firm enough for me. Do any online retailers sell standard beds? Or am I a dinosaur?
I can't stand sleeping on the foam mattress for more than a night or two. When I wake up it's like I've sunk into the foam and have been immobilized for hours. People are supposed to be able to move when they sleep.
He's since gotten an air bed for the other room, and I choose that one when I go to visit.