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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

#301

Post by loco5niner »

tunesmith wrote: post #196
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.

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.

And my wife won't use cast iron because it's too heavy and hurts her wrist.

Each of these (non-stick, stainless, cast iron) are great for the appropriate application, while also having downsides (like ANY tool). Knowing what to use, and when, comes from experience.

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

#302

Post by Serious_Cheese »

buttersbrian wrote: post #275
hubraumhugo wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting idea, just added this idea/feature to my backlog :)

looking for contributors?

Exactly! We can help out. Please let use know if you need any contributions from the community. Myself and (I'm sure) others are willing to help with this.

I am sick and tired of wasting money on buying products that last a year or two. It's also very bad for the environment. It increases the pill of trash that we're going to have to deal with someday.

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

#304

Post by gravypod »

hubraumhugo wrote: post #246
gravypod wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a way to add an item as "I don't own this buy I want to know if anyone does"? I'm thinking of buying a https://www.terrakaffe.com/product/tk-01-b/ but I don't know how actually good it is and I can't find it on your site. I'd probably also be willing to put up ~$5 dollars to have someone check out the product. I'm not sure if you could turn that into an effective compensation model for reviewers.

Interesting idea, just added this idea/feature to my backlog :)

Thank you! Do you have some way to sign up for notifications for those sorts of releases?

I'm partially interested in this product and also very interested in the TK-01. I'd really love to have that machine but I don't want to pay $800 for a lemon.

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

#305

Post by kbenson »

ryandrake wrote: post #109
julius wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good idea. Thanks for making that site. I am an asshole. I copy&pasted a fake 5 star review from Amazon, using a fake account. Do you have a plan to stop brands from doing this to you?

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…

Well, there wasn't a huge incentive for the biggest players to actually fix the problem. As long as Amazon was able to push the cost of returns to others, they only cared just enough that it didn't hurt their brand. This goes for both bad products and poorly advertised products.

Now that there have been some recent rulings that Amazon is liable for defective products they sell[1], we might see a difference as they put actual effort into it since it's more directly related to the bottom line of their e-commerce business.

1: https://www.businessinsider.com/court-rules-amazon-liable-de...

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

#306

Post by jfim »

jonlucc wrote: post #300
aSockPuppeteer wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wirecutter is a pay to play setup. Give them a referral code or your product is not the top pick anymore after careful consideration. I think it really depends on: (disposable income * time to evaluate reviews - fakespot review adjustment) Reddit has been a good resource lately as someone else mentioned. They have a buy it for life subreddit. Camelcamelcamel for price history.

I haven't heard that about Wirecutter, and I think that would devastate their brand (and maybe hurt NYT's) if true.

There was some drama about it [0][1] a while ago about standing desk reviews.

[0] https://www.xdesk.com/wirecutter-standing-desk-review-pay-to...

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/StandingDesk/comments/69npx4/drama_...

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

#307

Post by svachalek »

hammock wrote: post #290
skratlo wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

outdoorgearlab.com ? you must be kidding me, in their reviews, they leave out ~50% of competition, and their sorting of best product in category is apparently a bidding game, shifted just right to make the results believable. I do spent lots of time on researching outdoor products for my own needs, and outdoorgearlab.com is a joke

OGL used to be great. They didn't get to where they are because of scumminess. However, the quality has dropped in the last few years, and they do seem to be more influenced by affiliate marketing these days.

There's big money in affiliate marketing and very little in reviews so this gradual erosion is unfortunately universal in review sites.

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

#308

Post by FrojoS »

quacked wrote: post #219
colejohnson66 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> In theory, that’s what the dates next to Amazon/App Store reviews are for. There's no way to chart the average review score over time, though, is there? If people saw several years of 4.5-averaged scores and then a sudden drop to 3-average, that would tip them off, but looking at dates next to individual reviews doesn't help because any single review by itself varies wildly with the knowledge and opinion of the rev…

Steam has a system where you see a score for recent and one for all time reviews.

Interestingly they only allow for recommend / not recommend instead of stars.

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

#309

Post by Pxtl »

donmcronald wrote: post #192
dumbfounder wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Straight up paid astroturfing is probably more lucrative and less obvious than affiliate links - It just requires more co-operation between the marketer and the salesman.

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

#310

Post by maerF0x0 »

rwcarlsen wrote: post #138
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 think a present-value calculation of the cost to buy+run+maintain would be a more accurate/useful metric (i.e. present value of cash flows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Present_value#Net_present_valu... ) - although perhaps it is too sophisticated to be done well in practice for a crowd-data-aggregation project like this. If something costs me $100 to buy, and $10 every year to maintain for 20 years, that is not th…

Some people do things for reasons other than cash. For example I'll buy a TV that lasts rather than a new Vizio one each year because I cant be bothered and dont want to generate the waste.
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