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The war to sell you a mattress

fastcompany.com

191–200 of 235 posts

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem goes deep. 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 ma…

A dozen years ago, I had a house built, and I bought all the appliances myself. I thought I would research the market, find the sweet spot, and get a good deal through a specialty appliance store because I was getting everything at once. Boy, was I wrong. I subscribed to Consumer Reports online, and came up with what I thought was the right brand: GE "Gold". I bought everything in the line: stove, microwave, dishwash…

You are an idiot. Buy second-hand.

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#192
post #82

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…

For me, I feel like wisdom-of-the-honest crowd is actually somewhat attainable. If you can find corroborating reviews across different review providers (Amazon, google, etc) then I've found that the information is much more likely to be true.

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#193

The irony here being, after I read this article, I'm now seeing ads for mattresses all over the web due to the embedded ads in the article. Marketing and advertising feels more like a virus than anything these days.

Viral videos are a thing of past. Check out this new viral ad!

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#195

The irony here being, after I read this article, I'm now seeing ads for mattresses all over the web due to the embedded ads in the article. Marketing and advertising feels more like a virus than anything these days.

You don't use an ad blocker?

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#196
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one issue with any consumer product is that it is hard to find their issues when searching by generic terms (e.g. bran X problems) vs specific terms (brand X error Y). So it is only once you have the device installed and run into problems do you know which keywords to search. Modern dishwashers basically suck except for looks, rack capacity/configurations and quietness. They are now all low water use and you…

I’ve got a fairly modern (2008 or so), low-end (Beko) dishwasher that came with my house; it cleans perfectly. My main complaint would be that it’s a bit noisy, but it works fine, basically. The current version costs about 250 euro. A higher-end one that I had when I was renting also worked fine. You may just have been unlucky with the particular model; modern dishwashers aren’t all bad.

[deleted]

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#197

The irony here being, after I read this article, I'm now seeing ads for mattresses all over the web due to the embedded ads in the article. Marketing and advertising feels more like a virus than anything these days.

The only way is to blur your analytics. Move out of Google/Facebook. Install Ad Nauseam extension to not just block tracking but click on everything in the background. This will ruin the information they gather about you with noise.

https://adnauseam.io/

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem goes deep. 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 ma…

A dozen years ago, I had a house built, and I bought all the appliances myself. I thought I would research the market, find the sweet spot, and get a good deal through a specialty appliance store because I was getting everything at once. Boy, was I wrong. I subscribed to Consumer Reports online, and came up with what I thought was the right brand: GE "Gold". I bought everything in the line: stove, microwave, dishwash…

What is commercial kit? I didn't find anything when I looked it up. Are you taking about stuff meant for hotels?

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A dozen years ago, I had a house built, and I bought all the appliances myself. I thought I would research the market, find the sweet spot, and get a good deal through a specialty appliance store because I was getting everything at once. Boy, was I wrong. I subscribed to Consumer Reports online, and came up with what I thought was the right brand: GE "Gold". I bought everything in the line: stove, microwave, dishwash…

What is commercial kit? I didn't find anything when I looked it up. Are you taking about stuff meant for hotels?

More for restaurants and stores, probably. Commercial appliances.

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#200
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What law says I can’t give you an incentive to stop badmouthing me? According to this link, defamation - written (libelous) or verbal (derogatory) - is a civil matter and not a crime. https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/defamation-law-made-...

Since you are arguing the difference between bribery & extortion: "Extortion could occur between two businessmen and still be a criminal offense, whereas bribery is primarily focused on the bribing of Government employees or bribing by Government employees. But the most important difference is the difference between a threat to do harm in extortion and an offer to do good in bribery." https://criminal.laws.com/briber…

I wasn’t arguing bribery vs extortion. I was questioning whether defaming someone is an illegal act.

Since you’ve brought it up, is it extortion to offer up a negative opinion and then to offer to take down a negative opinion?

The public space is as much yours as mine to say what we will about whatever subject under the sun including each other.

E.g., “I believe zebnyc eats donkey meat for breakfast. I don’t think he should be allowed to do this.” Now, if you were applying for a PETA contract, this opinion of mine could hurt you financially. So if I offered to take down this opinion for money, what illegal act have I committed? My opinion of your eating habits is valuable to you because of your external circumstances namely your PETA contract.

Is this any different from this guy stating that he doesn’t understand why a piece of equipment should cost in the thousands when to make it should cost in the low hundreds. The company could have argued the actual cost teardown or said that they attach their QA and reputation to each piece of equipment sold so that boosts the price or given him money to shut him up. The chose the last option.

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