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Show HN: I built a Rotten Tomatoes-style platform for durable products

buyforlifeproducts.com

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Re: Show HN: I built a Rotten Tomatoes-style platform for durable products

#191

Post by arduinomancer »

driverdan wrote: post #112

I like the concept but since it's open to the public it will suffer from ignorance. For example, take the Salomon Quest boots that are listed. I own a pair of them. While they're good boots for the price they do not deserve an A- score. They are not BIFL. The soles are glued making them not resoleable. The sole on one of mine has started coming unglued too. The same can be said for the Victorinox Fibrox knife that ha…

I feel like the website needs a way to enter how long the person has owned the product and if it was light/heavy use.

The ratings could then be weighted by that.

Re: Show HN: I built a Rotten Tomatoes-style platform for durable products

#192

Post by donmcronald »

dumbfounder wrote: post #50
hubraumhugo wrote: post #2

A few months ago, I began developing the Buy For Life platform. It started as a simple list where people could add brands that manufacture durable products. It now evolved into a full platform with aggregated product reviews from all over the web, discussions, and various metrics to calculate a score for each brand and product. I want to help people finding the most durable and sustainable products in the world. It s…

I don't think the comparison to Rotten Tomatoes makes sense because you aren't aggregating professional reviews of these products. To me it is just another product review site tackling a niche. But the idea of tracking cost per month is very intriguing (a measure of TCO, which you may want to tackle as well, because for some products that may include electricity usage, upkeep, etc). I think it is something that can t…

> because you aren't aggregating professional reviews of these products

outdoorgearlab.com looks like a professional review site to me in the context of being an affiliate marketing / review site. IMHO almost all reviews online are affiliate marketing these days, so what I'd really be interested in is a site that hosts reviews and doesn't allow _any_ affiliate marketing or external links. IE: No incentive to game the system with inflated review scores.

And if you pay attention to those affiliate marketing sites that are disguised as review sites, note how they never give anything a bad review. "Poisoned my dog, caused my house to be condemned - 4.0/5.0 stars." Getting you to buy _something_ is the only goal.

Re: Show HN: I built a Rotten Tomatoes-style platform for durable products

#193

Post by billars »

hubraumhugo wrote: post #2

A few months ago, I began developing the Buy For Life platform. It started as a simple list where people could add brands that manufacture durable products. It now evolved into a full platform with aggregated product reviews from all over the web, discussions, and various metrics to calculate a score for each brand and product. I want to help people finding the most durable and sustainable products in the world. It s…

I really like your idea, pushing sustainable products of every day use is essential for our society.

Re: Show HN: I built a Rotten Tomatoes-style platform for durable products

#194

Post by WesleyJohnson »

jaclaz wrote: post #142
ryandrake wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the ship has sailed on the trustworthiness of online reviews from rando people. Pretty much every store or review site that aggregates user-submitted content has done a poor job of removing spam and fake reviews, and people are finally starting to realize how worthless the ratings are. Even if someone does crack this nut and figures it out, they won't be believed because of how fake everything has been for th…

>I think the best thing online stores can do at this point is just nuke all user-submitted ratings and reviews. They're 99% garbage. Yes, in order to re-start, but what then? The whole user reviews concept is bonkers, I would add that there are - besides "fake" reviews - "real" ones BUT written by clueless people (in good faith, but completely disconnected from an objective rating), and in this it is also way off the…

Loosely related, but flickchart is a moving ranking site whose tagline is: "If they're all 5 star movies, which one's the best?" I wonder if something like that could be adapted for product review sites? I suppose that would require you to have purchased 2 different cast iron pans, for example, to pick a favorite though.

Re: Show HN: I built a Rotten Tomatoes-style platform for durable products

#195

Post by tunesmith »

SamBam wrote: post #153
jaclaz wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think the best thing online stores can do at this point is just nuke all user-submitted ratings and reviews. They're 99% garbage. Yes, in order to re-start, but what then? The whole user reviews concept is bonkers, I would add that there are - besides "fake" reviews - "real" ones BUT written by clueless people (in good faith, but completely disconnected from an objective rating), and in this it is also way off the…

I think the "restart" goes back to trusted reviewers/companies offering reviews as their business. E.g. Consumer Reports, Wirecutter, etc. Then it's entirely how much you trust the reviewers, and whether you agree with their matrics/tastes.

Maybe there should be leagues of reviewer companies that can get promoted and relegated, based off of how well their reviews align to purchasing boosts and complaints. That's probably a horrible idea.

I really like wire cutter but they convinced me to buy an awesome convection toaster oven that takes seven minutes to lightly toast a piece of bread on its highest setting.

Re: Show HN: I built a Rotten Tomatoes-style platform for durable products

#196

Post by tunesmith »

zucked wrote: post #157
tsm wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stainless steel frying pan instead of nonstick frying pans where the non stick coating wears off. Cast iron even better. They're called nonstick for a reason; stainless steel does not compare. You'll have more sticking problems cooking eggs on a steel pan drowning in butter than on a (new) nonstick pan with minimal grease. I do own an 18th-century cast iron pan and it has pretty good seasoning. I use it for many th…

100% -- I never use my stainless frying pans because they are such a nightmare to get food to release and clean up afterwards. We use a cast iron and a nonstick - that's it. You can cover 95% of use cases with that.

We gave up on nonstick - we never found a good one that wasn't ruined within a year. With the right balance of a bit of olive oil and a bit of butter, I can fry and scramble eggs in my cast iron without it sticking.

Re: Show HN: I built a Rotten Tomatoes-style platform for durable products

#197

Post by morsch »

dumbfounder wrote: post #50
hubraumhugo wrote: post #2

A few months ago, I began developing the Buy For Life platform. It started as a simple list where people could add brands that manufacture durable products. It now evolved into a full platform with aggregated product reviews from all over the web, discussions, and various metrics to calculate a score for each brand and product. I want to help people finding the most durable and sustainable products in the world. It s…

I don't think the comparison to Rotten Tomatoes makes sense because you aren't aggregating professional reviews of these products. To me it is just another product review site tackling a niche. But the idea of tracking cost per month is very intriguing (a measure of TCO, which you may want to tackle as well, because for some products that may include electricity usage, upkeep, etc). I think it is something that can t…

> you aren't aggregating professional reviews of these products

They are: https://www.buyforlifeproducts.com/products/9

Wirecutter, Good Housekeeping, GearLab

Re: Show HN: I built a Rotten Tomatoes-style platform for durable products

#198

Post by colejohnson66 »

quacked wrote: post #163
masukomi wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

attempted to add an item. Here's my thoughts: first, adding an item is a LOT of labor to enter data that's freely available from amazon's APIs for most products you're going to encounter. not only would this be _much_ easier if you just allowed me to paste in an amazon link, or name that you searched for on amazon, you could also easily generate affiliate links and make money. I used _my_ affiliate link for the produ…

I disagree with your input about adding affiliate links, because I think that they would end up working contrary to the goal of this project. Sellers constantly reuse listings to sell updated versions of their products, with variable results. This is a huge issue with Amazon listings. OP lets you add an affiliate link to order Graeter's ice cream. There's 20 years of 5-star aggregate reviews and a link to go buy it,…

> If one is designing for a lasting product review, the information needs to be snapshotted at a certain point in time- ie "In 2020, this part number from this company was constructed well." Modern listings may reflect the 2020+ product, rather than the 2020 construction that got the good reviews.

In theory, that’s what the dates next to Amazon/App Store reviews are for. The problem with making them immutable though is: say you write a 5 star review, but the next day, the device craps out (inside the warranty). You contact the manufacturer who informs you that they can’t help you because it was caused by “user error” or whatever (basically, you can’t return/replace it). So you’d like to amend your review to mention that it crapped out, but you can’t. There also is the point of reviewing the product, not the company, but if a product and company sucks, why not warn the other consumers?

Re: Show HN: I built a Rotten Tomatoes-style platform for durable products

#199

Post by tunesmith »

Guest19023892 wrote: post #182
zucked wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% -- I never use my stainless frying pans because they are such a nightmare to get food to release and clean up afterwards. We use a cast iron and a nonstick - that's it. You can cover 95% of use cases with that.

These are the only pans I use at the moment but I've been thinking about adding a stainless pan. How do you handle dishes where you're frying something, but then need to add some vinegar, a tomato base, or a cup of water to boil into the pan after frying? I use my cast iron at the moment because these dishes start with a lot of frying and then go straight in the oven near the end, but they're pretty hard on the seaso…

I wonder about that too - a bit of white wine or vinegar to deglaze the pan, that seems to unstick anything.
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