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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

#311

Post by OJFord »

gallamine wrote: post #91
msluyter wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was the first question that occurred to me. Just a couple of days ago I needed to buy another iphone USB-lightning cable. If you want to get a sense of just how broken Amazon reviews are, try searching for one of these. It's a nightmare minefield of 4.7+ rated products that have these highly dubious 5 star ratings, but with a telltale sizeable chunk of recent 1 star reviews.[1] So I ended up having to also check…

I've taken to running all my amazon purchases through fakespot dot com first. It's highly discouraging.

> Amazon automatically provides you with the cheapest version of the product you’re looking at,

Nice; thanks, Amazon.

> even if it’s potentially fake.

Yikes! Hope I don't get one of those!

> Most of the time you cannot even return these items!

That's just rubbish though, Amazon returns are so easy, if the price is only marginally lower elsewhere I'll order from Amazon just because - if necessary - returning is easy, third party or not.

I'm not sure if I get the point of it, if I can't tell if the product's a 'fake', aren't I happy? If I can (and I'm not happy with it anyway) I'll just send it back?

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

#312

Post by composer »

driverdan wrote: post #112

I like the concept but since it's open to the public it will suffer from ignorance. For example, take the Salomon Quest boots that are listed. I own a pair of them. While they're good boots for the price they do not deserve an A- score. They are not BIFL. The soles are glued making them not resoleable. The sole on one of mine has started coming unglued too. The same can be said for the Victorinox Fibrox knife that ha…

Similar to floatrock's proposol [1] of turning reviews upside down... Imagine being able to track broken-ness (when, how, why) in the field across all products of the same model. And doing so for each product you own. "Default reviews" [2] is one way to do it. Pull requests welcome.

1 upside down - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24710832

2 default reviews - https://gist.github.com/iL3D/59df64947d42828d848ebfc1651a312...

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

#313

Post by wyre »

hammock wrote: post #291
donmcronald wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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.

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

#314

Post by abhiminator »

Great idea and decent implementation. The concept sounds great and I hope the site grows.

Also I'll put in a little plug here for /r/BuyItForLife/ -- great subreddit for talking/sharing about products that aren't engineered with planned obsolescence in mind.

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

#315

Post by FrojoS »

wccrawford wrote: post #225
godot wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they really though? On the topic of boots, let's say we're talking about high-cut hiking boots. I'm not an avid hiker. I do casual hiking sometimes so I just wear regular shoes to those. When I do slightly more strenuous hiking, I wear a specific pair of high-cut hiking boots that I own. I get a chance to do this maybe once a year, or less. I bought a pair of Denali ones from Big5 for $40 for this purpose. It has…

I think part of the problem is that price doesn't dictate quality. It can be an indicator, but it's no guarantee. And for occasional-use things, higher quality doesn't help as much, as you've seen. Finally, having an item that fits you well can be better than an item that'll last longer. 10x so for occasional-use items. For instance, I had a spatula that I loved . I have never found an better one, and every spatula t…

Bingo. If price was a good enough indicator for quality there would be no need for OP‘s website.

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

#316

Post by FrojoS »

mongol wrote: post #130
freeopinion wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Among the challenges for a site like this is the dimension of time. An outstanding brand one year can become a scourge five years later. But does the site's algorithm account for this?

Something that would be cool is if users uploaded pictures of their old gear. That would add genuinity and would also hint how well it holds up.

Best suggestion of the whole thread! Optional addition of the posters face in the picture would make it even harder to fake (see for instance TIL Threads on Reddit).

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

#317

Post by FrojoS »

tunesmith wrote: post #196
zucked wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% -- I never use my stainless frying pans because they are such a nightmare to get food to release and clean up afterwards. We use a cast iron and a nonstick - that's it. You can cover 95% of use cases with that.

We gave up on nonstick - we never found a good one that wasn't ruined within a year. With the right balance of a bit of olive oil and a bit of butter, I can fry and scramble eggs in my cast iron without it sticking.

No way. If you use a soft plastic or wood spoon it should last much longer than that. My 10 CHF frying pan is still good after 8 years.

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

#318

Post by wongarsu »

FrojoS wrote: post #308
quacked wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In theory, that’s what the dates next to Amazon/App Store reviews are for. There's no way to chart the average review score over time, though, is there? If people saw several years of 4.5-averaged scores and then a sudden drop to 3-average, that would tip them off, but looking at dates next to individual reviews doesn't help because any single review by itself varies wildly with the knowledge and opinion of the rev…

Steam has a system where you see a score for recent and one for all time reviews. Interestingly they only allow for recommend / not recommend instead of stars.

Steam also offers a graph of positive/negative reviews over time. But the more prominent recent reviews vs all time reviews usually conveys all the information needed

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

#319

Post by FrojoS »

driverdan wrote: post #271
tumblerz wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to nitpick, and I dont know those boots in particular, but the wildfire hiking boots owned by myself and friends have glued soles and local cobbler has resoled at least a couple pairs. Your overall point, however, is important. I find reviews of outdoors gear (even professional reviews) especially tilted toward light-use buyers, which is frustrating.

That's interesting. I didn't realize there were cobblers who resoled glued hiking boots. I guess it depends on the sole being available for purchase?

It’s a very common practice for climbing shoes, whether for mountaineering

https://www.scarpa.com/mountaineering

or rock climbing

https://www.lasportiva.com/en/man/footwear/climbing

The former cost in the ball park of 200 USD to resole, the latter about 30 USD. Unfortunately, I don’t think sneakers, running or approach shoes can be resoled.

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