Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday • Hacker News Board

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#131

Post by hermes8329 » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 3:14 AM UTC

soared wrote: post #5

coolso wrote: post #2

Wirecutter is essentially just a glorified, prettified Amazon affiliate link aggregator anyway. I have tried so many of their recommendations - always making sure not to click the affiliate links directly - and been burned or at the very least disappointed more than enough times, that at this point I just use their site as a starting guide, and then make sure not to actually buy their recommended pick if at all possi…

If you’re reading their content why wouldn’t you click their affiliate links? You’re costing them server hours and purposefully not giving them revenue despite it costing you nothing.

There is no agreement that I have to click their crap. And the server time is their problem not mine. I never said I'd click anything the freely published content they made specifically available to me

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#132

Post by tedmiston » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 3:20 AM UTC

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/

Well, to be fair, their guides focus much more on physical products than SaaS.

They can get third party affiliate revenue from Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot, etc in a program covering lots of products. Is there a B&M store analogy for SaaS?

[The rest of this comment is in response to parent comments more than your's directly.]

IMO The xdesk guy seems to be stretching reality way, way, way too far to claim that Wirecutter guides are influenced by whether or not affiliate revenue is offered on the purchase links just because Wirecutter repeatedly tried to get an affiliate program in place. Of course, they need a business model of some sort, and affiliate programs are what most, or at least many, review guide sites seem to choose.

Also, Wirecutter has never specialized in recommending the highest end options. A lot of their guides recommend a best choice for most people at some tradeoff of quality and cost. It's no surprise at all that the standing desk guide was iterated in that direction. And, even after no affiliate program, they didn't dis-recommend the xdesk desk, they just made it an upgrade pick recommendation.

Personally, I am skeptical that a typical Wirecutter reader is actually interested in spending $1500 on a great standing when they can get a pretty nice one for $500. The update makes reasonable sense to me.

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#133

Post by tedmiston » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 3:34 AM UTC

noneeeed wrote: post #75

donmcronald wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

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

I think the most interesting part of your comment: Is how do we [objectively] classify the two?

Perhaps the tendency to recommend products not recommended in spammier affiliate link farm guides is one metric that would be interesting to look at.

In comparison to WC, CR is not free; but, to play devil's advocate, [why] does a guide being non-free presuppose that their reviews are of higher integrity?

[In general, I don't think that it does. We just had a post about this the other day actually.]

In CR's case, they've been around for decades and are independent / non-profit, so that's something. But also, I don't think longevity and the legal business entity being a non-profit are necessary preconditions to writing review guides with integrity.

If we were trying to find the "CR of startups today", what would we look for?

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#134

Post by gaws » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 4:33 AM UTC

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…

What does this have to do with The Wirecutter employees trying to get a fair contract with The Times?

> Also note that wirecutter in their response do not deny this but try to weasel out by claiming that the word 'kickback' was misleading.

They've been getting a kickback from affiliated links for years.

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#135

Post by MrFoof » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 4:37 AM UTC

hoppyhoppy2 wrote: post #119

noneeeed wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Consumer Reports reviews mattresses, and they're independent and (imo) very trustworthy. A subscription costs money but some local libraries offer access.

At least with CR, their subscriptions are pretty trivial to cancel, and I think they even pro-rate the refunds.

I don't subscribe to them on a regular basis (I don't buy things often), but I have subscribed to them a few times to make a better informed decision on an upcoming purchase.

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#136

Post by tedmiston » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 4:42 AM UTC

detaro wrote: post #130

thesausageking wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty sensationalist article. Wirecutter doesn't hide the fact that they make money off of affiliate fees. Almost all content sites do. Are there better review websites than the Wirecutter? I've found them to be solid and helpful.

At least originally, they presented it more as "we link to large retailers and get affiliate fees, so we don't have a motivation to recommend any specific product in particular over competitors". Which is fair enough I guess, but "we want affiliate fees from you, if you disagree we downrank your product" is quite different.

Eh, correlation ≠ causation.

It takes a huge leap of faith to claim that their product went from main recommendation to upgrade recommendation (not really a downrank) because they don't have an affiliate program.

To me, the xdesk guy is reading extremely hard into two independent events to try to claim cause-and-effect where it doesn't really exist.

Their pricepoint is high and the standing desk space has commoditized a lot. There are plenty of good affordable options these days. It sounds like they just make a niche high-end product; I was surprised to hear it was Wirecutter's initial recommendation for most people in the first place — I don't know too many people that read Wirecutter guides and are also looking to spend $1,500 on a standing desk.

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#137

Post by tedmiston » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 4:49 AM UTC

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...

Right there with ya.

It would be more digestible to know what % the increase is (especially with respect to inflation).

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#138

Post by detaro » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 5:23 AM UTC

tedmiston wrote: post #136

detaro wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least originally, they presented it more as "we link to large retailers and get affiliate fees, so we don't have a motivation to recommend any specific product in particular over competitors". Which is fair enough I guess, but "we want affiliate fees from you, if you disagree we downrank your product" is quite different.

Eh, correlation ≠ causation. It takes a huge leap of faith to claim that their product went from main recommendation to upgrade recommendation (not really a downrank) because they don't have an affiliate program. To me, the xdesk guy is reading extremely hard into two independent events to try to claim cause-and-effect where it doesn't really exist. Their pricepoint is high and the standing desk space has commoditize…

Fair enough, but the suggestion that it is a motivation is always there once they leave the range of products that are well-captured by generic affiliate programs.

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#139

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 6:55 AM UTC

hauget wrote: post #73

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?

[deleted]

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#140

Post by gxnxcxcx » Wed, Nov 24, 2021, 7:04 AM UTC

hauget wrote: post #73

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?

But wouldn't it be prone to the same co-opting by anyone holding the bigger bag of money like the endorsing that already exists, just adding to the noise of the influencerdom?

"Friends" and average nobodies already turn scummy as soon as RandomCorp throws in some kind of stupid referral incentive. Celebrities and has-beens can't be trusted when addressing consumer goods. Leveraging social media to bridge the gap between them is what brought us influencers.