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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

#341

Post by tomcam »

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…

In your ideal version, how would the site get paid for?

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

#342

Post by qwerty456127 »

Cool. I wish there were durable computers.

E.g. I've got my Dell E5500 about a decade ago and still totally enjoy it. Since then I've just replaced the HDD with an SSD, replaced the RAM once and clean the fan every now and then (super easy!). It really seems built for ease of maintenance/upgrading as a top priority. Everything works perfectly. The only thing it can't do is modern 3D gaming (which I don't want).

I'd don't mind buying a modern analogue which would last me the next 10+ years but I don't know which modern model can be expected to be nearly as durable and pleasure to maintain.

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

#343

Post by Fission »

jfim wrote: post #306
jonlucc wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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_...

I keep on seeing this link pop up. Since no one is replying, I'd like to point out that I think the Wirecutter is actually in the right here. Another HN member did some investigation and found that Xdesk is stretching things: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22144078

In general, having been able to talk with some of the people there, I'm convinced that WC was focused first and foremost on truth-seeking and quality at this point in their life (pre-acquisition) — however, the consensus seems to have been that after the NYT acquired them, they started becoming more incentivized to grow revenue, and started to jump the shark.

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

#345

Post by sizzle »

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…

Maybe include any class action lawsuits, recalls issued, Etc.

Also don't let pissed off people derail product ratings because they are unhappy.

I'm thinking of a Wirecutter product research methodology and wiki below to list breakdown of materials, where they were sourced, changes in materials by manufacturer in later product updates, etc.

Let the users duke it out in the discussion section.

Basically avoid being Yelp and full of amateur reviews and people gaming the review system.

I would love for this to be an open source 'consumer affairs' product quality watchdog/authority. Too many times do manufacturers do a bait and switch where the first version has durable parts then subsequent versions are tweaked with cost cutting measures and you have inferior pieces that breakdown when they've captured a large market share of customers.

Unlike software, there is no 'what's new in this update' readme overview and you never really know if the manufacturer decided to cut corners by using a factory in Shenzhen that mass produces cheapo materials when they were previously made in a factory in middle America with a higher standard of quality, etc.

Thoughts?

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

#346

Post by gleenn »

julius wrote: post #28
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…

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?

How about, for someone to post a review, you have to take a picture of yourself with the product. But before you take the picture, you get randomly assigned a number. You must post a picture with that number in the photo. Then either do magic machine learning to check, or have a review process. Better, have it be manual. Get more people in the process, not less. I think this is an awesome idea, which would be completely ruined by fake reviews, but I'd feel much safer if there were like 1/10th the number of products but knew with certainty that a real human vetted and cared about that specific review.

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

#348

Post by herpderperator »

Just curious: I can't seem to figure out where the data used on this site is coming from. Is it hardcoded in the app and encoded differently? I can't see an API being used that references any of the products. When I refresh, it seems the data loads at the exact same time as the app which makes me think the data is hardcoded somewhere.

Example: There is a product with the word Dungarees in it, but I can't find any reference to it in the Network tab.

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

#349

Post by sokoloff »

TT3351 wrote: post #234
0xffff2 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Positive reviews are noise for me on any product. For products I don't care enough about to do independent research, I evaluate them exclusively by reading 1 and 2 star reviews, ignoring the additional noise of "the product didn't ship on time" type reviews, and deciding if the specific complaints made in the rest are things I care about.

Are you open to the possibility of competing brands bombarding decent products with negative reviews? FWIW, almost every [negative, because I'm trying to warn others about wasting money] Amazon review I leave is removed for arbitrary reasons set out by Amazon. They seem uninterested in contributions like "this mouse was $30 not 6 months ago, and the current $90 price tag is unconscionable. [LG G602 mouse]" The few ti…

If I’m reading your review of a mouse, I want to know how well the mouse worked. If I want to know the price history, I’ll go to camelcamelcamel.

You telling me the mouse was cheaper before doesn’t help me decide which mouse to buy today.

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

#350

Post by nwienert »

wyre wrote: post #313
hammock wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit is the biggest player in this space right now. "[xyz product] reddit" are very popular search terms.

I think because without Reddit every result is an affiliate blog trying to sell the product. Reddit feels like the reviews come from real people.

How to build the next Google: all good results these days are within communities, and Google search has become useless for most of these searches.

So don't build a search engine: build a "rotten tomatoes for X" where the sources for each X are "the top N subreddits/communities/editorial-sites/forums for X".

For example, supplements: examine.com, reddit /r/supplements /r/nootropics (long tail ones), wikipedia, etc.

Then, final piece: make this aggregator site also a community (ala reddit/hn) where people vote on the results rankings, but also vote on how other people comment on them. Because you can lock down user accounts quite a bit (have high bar for registration with lots of verification for voting permissions), and you have a quality indictor for the users themselves (users voting on users), you may get much better results over time as the community sorts out who are legit and who isn't.

I'm not saying any system is immune to optimization/spam, but it feels like Reddit, HN, SO, Wikipedia at least prove that if you want good quality content, rely on a community. Why not extend the model to search itself?

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