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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

#121

Post by [deleted] »

hogFeast wrote: post #106
_jal wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> strikes are very much a first resort I'm going to guess you don't know any union members. Strikes are very hard on the strikers. You're suddenly taking no income but still putting in a shift on the picket line. Not only is there the real risk of the whole thing being net-negative, but you could lose your job entirely. And a lot of time, you only strike because you've been squeezed financially for so long, you may n…

That guess is incorrect. And yes, as I explained but will repeat, strikes happen within a political/legal/cultural/economic context. In some contexts, that has increased the frequency of strikes. By your account, the proportion of strikes just relates to the financial position of the strikers...I don't know how it is possible to be aware of the history of trade unionism and come to that conclusion. For example, indiv…

[deleted]

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#122

Post by mox1 »

kfreds wrote: post #67
is_true wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think they didn't get money from them?

Mullvad: I know it for a fact, because I'm one of the founders. IVPN: I don't know it, but I've met Nick Pestell (the founder) several times, and he's told me they don't pay for reviews. I trust him.

Ahh, this is why one must be careful when responding to seemingly random people on hacker news, there's a pretty good chance the CEO, head researcher , worlds fore-most expert on the topic, etc. is actually here reading the article.

:)

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#123

Post by clairity »

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…

based on wirecutter's own test results a few years ago, the blue air 211+ air purifier had the best performance by a good margin, but they wouldn't recommend it, for at least 2 years after i bought it, though they later did so, briefly. this was likely to maximize their revenue rather than provide the best recommendation. hard to trust them after that.

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#124

Post by clairity »

HeavenFox wrote: post #8
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.

Not OP but I bought their humidifier recommendation and it wasn't great. Barely made a dent in the humidity level of my small studio apartment. Turns out I was not alone: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25993512

i bought that humidifier and it works fine for my purposes. it's purely evaporative, so it doesn't really work well at lower temperatures and won't raise humidity much past 50%. for my use case, it keeps the air moist enough not to irritate me when the heater is on (a few weeks during the winter), which was the problem i was trying to solve.

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#125

Post by pfranz »

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.

I think you can have affiliate links, you just run the risk of ruining your credibility. I also think it might be difficult if that's your only source of income.

I wonder if anyone has tried giving their top picks away for free, but charging for the review and methodology? I feel like I'd be suckered in. When I'm shopping I hop around and look at a bunch of reviews. I'll then try and find YouTube reviews to see the product in context. Especially, if it's a site that comes up over and over I'd pay to see pros/cons and comparisons. No idea if that would scale to a business, though.

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#126

Post by aurizon »

hogFeast wrote: post #108
aurizon wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think some newspaper groups in the US had TV stations. I know some newspaper groups that own printing works have tried to sell those too. But, generally, no. The reason to buy newspapers is using the cash flow to turn around the business (again, it is very unlikely that you will survive doing this as a public company, so there is a reason to sell to a privately-run distressed asset specialist).

True, they know how to break it up and sell some assets and shed some obligations, like pensions...

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#127

Post by wolverine876 »

joshe wrote: post #117
wolverine876 wrote: post #84

I'm surprised Consumer Reports isn't enormously popular here. It's not personal, engaging blog-style writing - it seems written to help the broadest possible audience, but it's the most technical research by far: They have actual domain experts, labs (well-resourced), scientific method, and loads of objective data - e.g., for bicycle helmets, they have human head/body models, put all the helmets on them (I'd guess 50…

Was a huge fan 20 years ago, but it's low quality now. They just don't do much work now and the testing is superficial and lazy.

Their home page is covered with reviews. I have't seen superficial or lazy - as I said, they have labs, research, etc., well beyond any competitor - but can you give an example?

https://www.consumerreports.org/

They also are leaders in consumer advocacy, such as for privacy, financial abuse, broadband service, and much more, and organize user testing of things like broadband, water quality, and credit reports

https://action.consumerreports.org/

https://action.consumerreports.org/participatory_research

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#128

Post by johntb86 »

pfranz wrote: post #125
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.

I think you can have affiliate links, you just run the risk of ruining your credibility. I also think it might be difficult if that's your only source of income. I wonder if anyone has tried giving their top picks away for free, but charging for the review and methodology? I feel like I'd be suckered in. When I'm shopping I hop around and look at a bunch of reviews. I'll then try and find YouTube reviews to see the p…

Consumer reports does that. For example https://www.consumerreports.org/vacuum-cleaners/best-vacuums... has top picks, but https://www.consumerreports.org/products/vacuum-cleaners-289... doesn't show the ratings scorecard unless you're a member.

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#129

Post by howinteresting »

kfreds wrote: post #68
howinteresting wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While my experience with Wirecutter has been decidedly mixed, Mullvad really does seem to be the best VPN around.

Thank you!

Ahh I didn't realize you were one of the founders of Mullvad! Thanks for all your work :)

Re: Wirecutter strike and boycott Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday

#130

Post by detaro »

thesausageking wrote: post #51
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…

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.
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