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Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

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Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#71

Post by filmgirlcw »

callmeal wrote: post #37

Wirecutter is a pay-to-play operation. I stopped heeding their recommendations after I discovered that they were aggressively persuing kickbacks and refusing to review products that do not pay. See https://www.xdesk.com/wirecutter-standing-desk-review-pay-to... for example. Also note that wirecutter in their response do not deny this but try to weasel out by claiming that the word 'kickback' was misleading. https://w…

It's worth noting that this whole thing is from 2013/2014. Since then, Wirecutter has been sold to the New York Times and has completely different management. I don't personally think Brian Lam did what Nextdesk accused him of (disclosure: I've met Lam socially), but I also understand why it seems improper to have that kind of outreach.

Based on my personal knowledge of many people who have worked at Wirecutter past and present, I don't believe they are a pay to play operation at all.

Regardless, that has no bearing on whether or not their employees are owed a fair labor contract or not.

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#72

Post by karaterobot »

Cd00d wrote: post #43
karaterobot wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've gotten good recommendations from Wirecutter, but also very bad ones. I bought their recommended coffee machine, and it's $200, and no better than the $30 Mr. Coffee it replaced (except, I guess, in the referral fee they get). They also recommend an air purifier by Levoit, which performed demonstrably worse than a box fan with a HEPA filter bungee corded on to it[1]. In fairness, Wirecutter recommended a cheaper…

I have their recommended coffee machine (OXO Barista Brain), and have loved it for over 3 years. I recommend it to everyone I know that likes drip coffee as much as I do. If you were so happy with a $30 Mr. Coffee, what even compelled you to spend $200??

I was referring to the OXO 9-cup coffee maker[1]. I don't expect it to be 7 times better than the Mr. Coffee, and would be satisfied if it was just noticeably better in any way. But it's really pretty much the same thing, only more expensive. To be clear, both units are absolutely fine at making coffee.

What compelled me to spend $200 on the OXO was the glowing Wirecutter review.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-drip-coffee-...

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#73

Post by hauget »

intro-b wrote: post #63

I think there's still a niche for a Wirecutter-like site. But I don't know what it should look like, and how it should function without invasive affiliate advertising. I like reading high quality reviews of practical goods as well as more specialized things. Right now, I just Google search "name of product" + "reddit" and browse through threads to get a general consensus of a product.

Q: Would you trust, or find useful, thumbs up reviews from people you follow online? Say you could see a collection of stuff people endorse via Twitter/IG, would that be of value to you?

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#74

Post by filmgirlcw »

bin_bash wrote: post #70

Looks like they're asking for $300,000 for their 65 workers. That's an average of $4600/person. Does that seem pretty low to anyone else? https://twitter.com/wirecutterunion/status/14631750942184161...

Yes. Especially when they aren't asking for the same pay as other New York Times editorial employees -- not even close to it. The pay delta between median editorial guild member of the Times and editorial member of Wirecutter union is over $40,000. So they are asking for a little more than 10% of the delta between two of their unionized editorial writing groups, in terms of median pay.

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#75

Post by noneeeed »

donmcronald wrote: post #54
callmeal wrote: post #37

Wirecutter is a pay-to-play operation. I stopped heeding their recommendations after I discovered that they were aggressively persuing kickbacks and refusing to review products that do not pay. See https://www.xdesk.com/wirecutter-standing-desk-review-pay-to... for example. Also note that wirecutter in their response do not deny this but try to weasel out by claiming that the word 'kickback' was misleading. https://w…

The whole affiliate marketing space is a dirty business. Saying affiliate relationship is just softer language for kickback IMO. The incentives are the same. I think all reviews with affiliate links should have to be labeled as paid promotion. This [1] sleepopolis saga is an amazing read if you’ve never seen it. 1. https://www.fastcompany.com/3065928/sleepopolis-casper-blogg...

We need a new mattress, after about half an hour of searching for reviews I realised that there was no way I was going to find any genuinely honest reviews anywhere. Search results are packed with full-time mattress review sites that are all clearly getting affiliate payments of some form or other, many of them seem to have the same content.

There might be some honest ones out there, but they are drowned out by all the ones that are clearly just affiliat link farms.

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#76

Post by aurizon »

hogFeast wrote: post #33
aurizon wrote: post #7

What are their current wages, and what are they offered, but have declined? I am unable to support or castigate unless I know what side is in error. We have seen the huge loss of first class mail starved the US Postal Service of $$, and now the decline in printed page journalism with the ease of access by all manner of fake news/blogs has starved the news papers of $$ - yet on the other hand there is a hedge fund buy…

If you own a paper, and revenue starts dropping 10% YoY for multiple years then you are going to need to put in place changes to the business, finances, corporate structure that most people who owned newspapers do not want to do. In some cases, this has been forced due to high levels of debt. But even in those cases, some change in operation is usually required because something has changed quite significantly. So yo…

Yes, I see, managing a declining business can be done profitably, and they might have other assets the fund will sell.

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#77

Post by filmgirlcw »

bryan0 wrote: post #3

If a union isn’t threatening to strike, does that mean they’re not negotiating hard enough?

The New York Times won't even agree to meet with them to discuss negotiations. This is literally a last resort. These negotiations have been ongoing for two years.

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#78

Post by gommm »

karaterobot wrote: post #16
bryan0 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve found their recommendations to be pretty good in general. What products were you disappointed by? If both they and CR are in agreement it’s a pretty good bet.

I've gotten good recommendations from Wirecutter, but also very bad ones. I bought their recommended coffee machine, and it's $200, and no better than the $30 Mr. Coffee it replaced (except, I guess, in the referral fee they get). They also recommend an air purifier by Levoit, which performed demonstrably worse than a box fan with a HEPA filter bungee corded on to it[1]. In fairness, Wirecutter recommended a cheaper…

Having tested the DIY option versus some other air purifiers (xiaomi not levoit though), I do think that there are other considerations to take into account. A box fan with a HEPA filter bungee is loud and is very annoying to have at home. An air filter that is much less loud for the same result, can be controlled via home assistant (I have an ESP32 connected to a VOC sensor and a decent particle sensor that I use to control when to turn on and off the air purifier) can be worth it.

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#79

Post by wolverine876 »

leetcrew wrote: post #69
hoppyhoppy2 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumer Reports has a long history of subscriber-funded independent reviews. They refuse all advertising, free/discounted items, etc. to prevent conflicts of interest. They review everything from cars and lawnmowers to mattresses and electronics, but depending on what niche of electronics you're looking at they may or may not have the kind of reviews you're looking for. https://www.consumerreports.org

consumer reports is a great resource when you just want an example of X that isn't a complete lemon. that's not a criticism, most purchases are like that for most people. but if you care about getting a really good X, they're not a great source. most of their buying guides have a lot less detail than Wirecutter's, and of course pale in comparison to dedicated review sites for popular niches. it's unfortunate that you…

Consumer Reports has less prose, but much more objective data - in sortable tables. The data is from their labs, where they have domain experts using the scientific method to evaluate products.

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#80

Post by boardwaalk »

kfreds wrote: post #53
callmeal wrote: post #37

Wirecutter is a pay-to-play operation. I stopped heeding their recommendations after I discovered that they were aggressively persuing kickbacks and refusing to review products that do not pay. See https://www.xdesk.com/wirecutter-standing-desk-review-pay-to... for example. Also note that wirecutter in their response do not deny this but try to weasel out by claiming that the word 'kickback' was misleading. https://w…

> I stopped heeding their recommendations after I discovered that they were aggressively persuing kickbacks and refusing to review products that do not pay. Let me offer a counterexample - VPN services. They didn’t get a cent from Mullvad, which they declared the winner. Number two was IVPN, which also doesn’t have an affiliate program. The review: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-vpn-service/

That they didn’t do this for a single product category doesn’t mean very much, though.
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