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The war to sell you a mattress

fastcompany.com

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Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#201

Post by saimiam »

gamblor956 wrote: post #126
saimiam wrote: post #111

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-...

See this page[1] for a detailed explanation, which explains that under most extortion laws, the threatened act may be perfectly legal (like leaking photos of someone in a compromised position). It becomes illegal if the threatened act would "harm" the victim and you demand money in exchange for not doing it. (Legally, harm has a very broad scope, and can include loss of reputation.) [edit] Note that what this YTer is…

Agree (regarding your edit.)

The guy posted an opinion. The company weighed the costs of refuting his opinion or paying him to shut up. I don’t think this is blackmail or extortion. How an opinion can be construed as defamatory I fail to see.

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#202

Post by manigandham »

alecco wrote: post #197
sixdimensional wrote: post #120

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/

Not really, just use a real adblocker and move on with your life. Adtech has plenty of problems but this kind of silly abuse is easily caught and filtered out with no effort. You might even cause yourself more annoyance with fraud and spam prevention tools used with common services.

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#203

Post by sixdimensional »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #195
sixdimensional wrote: post #120

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?

Ironically, at work untrusted extensions are blocked so can't install ad blockers.

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#204

Post by jeffshek »

stephenboyd wrote: post #198
TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #171

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?

Yeah, the lifehack has been to buy things labeled restaurant grade.

If you think of a blender, the healthiest person might use it twice a day. At a restaurant, a blender has to last being used all day for a few months.

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#205

Post by yipopov »

manigandham wrote: post #202
alecco wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

Not really, just use a real adblocker and move on with your life. Adtech has plenty of problems but this kind of silly abuse is easily caught and filtered out with no effort. You might even cause yourself more annoyance with fraud and spam prevention tools used with common services.

>this kind of silly abuse is easily caught and filtered out with no effort

Not an AdNauseum user myself, but how can we tell this isn't ad industry FUD? They would certainly have a vested interest in discouraging the practice.

If nothing else at least AdNauseum can contribute somewhat to bandwidth and administrative costs.

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#206

Post by Tempest1981 »

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #178
skewart wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they don't exactly tell you BUY THIS, DONT BUY THAT > but for what I care about it sucks, its hard to use, and it doesn't dry dishes AT ALL. I'm confused, it sounds like you wish CR had just told you which dishwasher to buy without going into more detail, but you also wish they had gone into more detail about specific strengths and weaknesses so you could make a decision based on what's most important to you. Did C…

I did contradict myself there. What I was trying to say is that a highest customer satisfaction rating probably would have been better than all the information they gave. But barring that, random Amazon reviews which were free, provided me information more aligned with my experience. What they talk about is how the dishwasher did, when put through their special "testing program". So apparently this top of the line di…

I don't think CR tests reliability. They survey subscribers to measure quality... which seems more scientific than Amazon reviews, where it's an art to ascertain quality.

I agree that Amazon is great for finding what may frustrate you. Scepter when they combine multiple products and reviews into a single page.

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#207

Post by manigandham »

yipopov wrote: post #205
manigandham wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, just use a real adblocker and move on with your life. Adtech has plenty of problems but this kind of silly abuse is easily caught and filtered out with no effort. You might even cause yourself more annoyance with fraud and spam prevention tools used with common services.

>this kind of silly abuse is easily caught and filtered out with no effort Not an AdNauseum user myself, but how can we tell this isn't ad industry FUD? They would certainly have a vested interest in discouraging the practice. If nothing else at least AdNauseum can contribute somewhat to bandwidth and administrative costs.

Because it’s one of the most data driven industries with petabytes generated everyday of actual user behavior so abnormal usage, especially wild clicks, are among the easiest to catch.

Bandwidth costs would be a few extra bytes and you would likely only hurt yourself if using a metered connection. There are 0 extra admin costs.

If you don’t like the ads then avoid the site, but if you must still access the content the use an ad blocker because loading ads just to falsely click on them only generates a stronger signal than usual.

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#208

Post by bluedino »

sjg007 wrote: post #148
ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #138

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…

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…

>> drying dishes even on the dry cycle depends on relative humidity

Thanks to Energy Star they can't put a heating element in them like they used to. Brand new Samsung dishwasher (why does everyone thing Samsung appliances are great? They are garbage) and it doesn't dry, dishes end up wet, dishwasher ends up stinking, Samsung suggests cracking the door... Went on Lowes website and half the reviews have the same complaints. Junk.

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#209

Post by GuB-42 »

sjbase wrote: post #135
vijayr wrote: post #105

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.

It's really unfortunate. There's a great book called Metaphors We Live By [1] that digs into this same observation, using "arguments" as an example: you "attack" another person's argument, you "defend your point." You either win or lose. We could have just as easily chosen arguments to be a dance instead of a war. A lot of narrative here in America eventually turns into good vs. evil, and War on X is an example of th…

You mean, like a dance battle, oh wait...

I think the idea is backwards. We don't use military metaphors for anything competitive, we use words related to competition for describing war, because war is competitive by nature. It goes back and forth from there.

Re: The war to sell you a mattress

#210

Post by [deleted] »

skewart wrote: post #145
ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #138

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…

> they don't exactly tell you BUY THIS, DONT BUY THAT > but for what I care about it sucks, its hard to use, and it doesn't dry dishes AT ALL. I'm confused, it sounds like you wish CR had just told you which dishwasher to buy without going into more detail, but you also wish they had gone into more detail about specific strengths and weaknesses so you could make a decision based on what's most important to you. Did C…

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