Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

dynomight.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 723 posts

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#371

Post by duskwuff »

applecrazy wrote: post #311
mschild wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main problem is probably finding any mainstream consumer TVs that are non-smart. I have looked and beyond some obscure brands or short of incredibly expensive commercial models there are barely any options.

Any TV is stupid if you don’t connect it to the Internet.

Even if the "smart" features of a TV are rendered nonfunctional by not giving it a network connection, you're still stuck with a TV that takes a while to boot up (yes, really), and which may be built around a UI designed to navigate its smart features (like booting to a home screen instead of passing through HDMI input).

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#372

Post by sgerenser »

dan-robertson wrote: post #180
DeathArrow wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Project Farm is testing a lot of things: https://youtube.com/c/ProjectFarm

I watched a few of these a while ago and I can somewhat see why they’re popular as they have this fast-paced data-dump look-at-all-this-testing format but I didn’t really think they were very good. I thought many of the tests were likely poor metrics for actual quality and that results would therefore be misleading. A stupid example would be trying to measure how much torque a Phillips head screwdriver can apply befo…

I'll also agree that his reviews aren't perfect, but the one on automotive scratch removers was enlightening. I had used a random product before that basically did nothing. I bought Meguiar's ultimate compound on his recommendation, and it did indeed work surprisingly well (with just hand polishing, no buffer) on the multitude of surface scratches as I was preparing a car for resale.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#373

Post by normaler »

fnimick wrote: post #334
fartcannon wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you trust Linus, though? He often promotes himself as without bias, but he very clearly hates Apple (except the watch). He also loves things he already understands (anything Microsoft). He's got heavy duty fanboyitis. And he's clearly someone you can buy demonstrated by his flip flopping AMD/Intel/NVidia praise. I don't think he outwardly lies (at least not in a way that matters), or anything, but he's got pretty…

He's also vocally anti-union and actively tried to stop his employees from marketing themselves on personal social media (to stop them from building a following and then leaving, I'm guessing), so I refuse to watch any of his content or support his business in any way now.

Can you elaborate in the anti-union thing? I can't seem to find anyone discussing this.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#374

Post by nextos »

rkagerer wrote: post #223
jfim wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind air purifiers are just a fan with filters in front of it. A box fan with a furnace filter strapped to it, while ugly, will do similarly for reducing the amount of particles in the room. What you're paying for is basically three things: a design that looks acceptable in a room, a fan that's reasonably quiet, and ability to source filters in the future.

Check, check and check. And also a filter quality and seal design that's been tested and proven to work (they do a QA particulate test on each individual unit before it ships https://imgur.com/a/exTrjU7 ).

IQAir are really good. My only complaint is that they are expensive and that their fan uses too much energy.

I wish they would release a smaller machine that was a bit cheaper and could compete in price and energy usage with mid-sized Coway models.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#375

Post by rhyzomatic »

fnimick wrote: post #334
fartcannon wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you trust Linus, though? He often promotes himself as without bias, but he very clearly hates Apple (except the watch). He also loves things he already understands (anything Microsoft). He's got heavy duty fanboyitis. And he's clearly someone you can buy demonstrated by his flip flopping AMD/Intel/NVidia praise. I don't think he outwardly lies (at least not in a way that matters), or anything, but he's got pretty…

He's also vocally anti-union and actively tried to stop his employees from marketing themselves on personal social media (to stop them from building a following and then leaving, I'm guessing), so I refuse to watch any of his content or support his business in any way now.

Do you mind sharing some links to back up these claims?

Just watched a video [0] where he clearly comes across as being pro workers rights, and against passing prop 22 in California. He seems to be generally pro-union while still trying to point out some general issues with them. He also says he would be "offended" if his employees unionized at LMG, which while maybe is a bit stupid to say, I don't think counts as anti-union.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpyiNOD-MOk

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#376

Post by Dracophoenix »

armadsen wrote: post #354
fnimick wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's also vocally anti-union and actively tried to stop his employees from marketing themselves on personal social media (to stop them from building a following and then leaving, I'm guessing), so I refuse to watch any of his content or support his business in any way now.

I know this is completely subjective, and his millions of subscribers tell me my opinion is far from ubiquitous, but he's also just straight up obnoxious to me. One of those people whose voice, demeanor, appearance, everything, just immediately turns me off.

Because he sounds like the stereotype of a Hot Topic-shopping turbonerd c.2002 ? Personally, I find it nostalgic, and even endearing.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#377

Post by pigbearpig »

irishloop wrote: post #202

I see a lot of discussion here about Wirecutter and/or Consumer Reports being untrustworthy. But I am not sure "reviews" are a solvable problem, really. The human element of perception is inherent to reviewing products. I might think something is genuinely better than you because it meets my needs better. Or because you got a bad part in yours through sheer bad luck. Or I had a migraine that day. I usually just try t…

People should use Wirecutter and CR to find a list of products that they'll probably be happy with. The expectation that they can identify the absolute best product for everyone is impossible and this article/discussion is probably a bit unfair.

If I'm an expert in a product area, then I'll find a more specific review site or do the analysis myself, but if I'm not, then Wirecutter and CR do a pretty good job of helping me avoid duds.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#378

Post by iancmceachern »

hypersoar wrote: post #51

The Wirecutter is a highly flawed review site, but at least it's a real one. There are vanishingly few left for general consumer products. There's WC, Consumer Reports, and what else? They've seem to have all been killed off. When I'm researching some category of product, I feel lucky if I find any professional reviews written by people who have actually touched the thing they're reviewing. I know we've all had the e…

It's not a review site, but the YouTube channel "project farm" is this. He not only has great objective comparison reviews but he shares his test setup, results and data so its clear its a great objective review.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#379

Post by donmcronald »

mrkwse wrote: post #70
hypersoar wrote: post #51

The Wirecutter is a highly flawed review site, but at least it's a real one. There are vanishingly few left for general consumer products. There's WC, Consumer Reports, and what else? They've seem to have all been killed off. When I'm researching some category of product, I feel lucky if I find any professional reviews written by people who have actually touched the thing they're reviewing. I know we've all had the e…

It will be interesting if LMG can pull off what Linus is aiming for with the massive investment in a laboratory environment. There are huge parts of the tech market where the most critical reviewing you can find is anecdotal accounts of if the reviewer liked a product or not (or the more clinical reviews are drowned out by the anecdotal noise).

I think the review industry is so bad that even a mediocre quality endeavor could gain a ton of traction. The problem with the current tech review industry IMO is that it seems like the benchmarking and review part of it are treated like separate business units that need to be self sustaining / profitable.

If you go by what LMG says on their podcast it sounds like the intent is for the lab to give them credibility and to act as an eyeball funnel, even if it needs to be subsidized by the entertainment side of the business. They've already shown that it's possible to make entertaining reviews if you keep the technical details light, so what they really need is hard data to back them up when they trash a product or get accused of being a corporate puppet.

I personally find their videos to be entertaining, so if I'm looking to buy something and I know they evaluate tech products, I'll go to their labs site, look for entertainment videos that are produced from that data, and watch those videos. Then when I find something I think looks like a good fit for me I'll jump back to the labs side to look at the details.

IMO the thing that might make LMG's effort different is that they're going into the space as a new participant. I think they realize the technical aspect of the lab is basically going to be content that needs to exist, but that no one reads (enough to be profitable) and their monetization is set up to accommodate that scenario. Compare that to traditional reviewers (and SEO spammers) that rely on page views for their revenue.

The whole review industry is going to keep shifting towards video and the low cost, low value SEO spam sites are a big part of that. Any existing review businesses that aren't shifting towards a hybrid model like the LMG / Labs plan are going to get crushed IMO. Even if it's not LMG doing it, it's going to happen eventually.

Re: Contra Wirecutter on the IKEA air purifier

#380

Post by elxr »

screye wrote: post #353
wpietri wrote: post #282

Who is Dynomight? For me this piece leans pretty heavily on authorial confidence. But I couldn't find any indication of who the author is, or what his expertise is. I get why he's casting aspersions on their revenue model and how it might affect what they write. But then he doesn't disclose what his revenue model and personal interests might be.

As a reader, if I had to generalize; Dynomight is a SF-rationalist-substack-adjacent blogger with a good understanding of statistics. The 2 closest popular bloggers I associate him with are SSC and Gwern; both pretty popular on HN. I particularly loved his blogs on the homelessness[1] and drug[2] crisis in the US. He? digs deep, does the statistical due diligence and usually finds conclusions that richer-academics-me…

Great pitch, might add a few of his articles to my list.

I'm a fan of Gwern too, but who is SSC? Haven't heard of this one.

Post reply on HN