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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

#331

Post by rapind »

alanbernstein wrote: post #119
rapind wrote: post #74

Looks great. This is probably on your TODO list, but I wanted to make sure you were aware in case it isn't. Your terms of service and privacy policy are: a) Not linked to anywhere except the login screen in very small text. Seems to be part of Google sign in? b) Clicking them goes nowhere. I suspect you setup Google login and didn't provide links to a terms / privacy screen. If you're going to be collecting logins (m…

Really? How much time do you spend reading ToS and privacy policies?

Doesn't take long, maybe 15 minutes per if they aren't massive (massive being an immediate red flag to me). Usually skimming and looking for certain things since they are usually very similar / boilerplate. I don't sign up for a new SaaS every day though so it's not a huge inconvenience for me.

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

#332

Post by yourapostasy »

hubraumhugo wrote: post #2

A few months ago, I began developing the Buy For Life platform. It started as a simple list where people could add brands that manufacture durable products. It now evolved into a full platform with aggregated product reviews from all over the web, discussions, and various metrics to calculate a score for each brand and product. I want to help people finding the most durable and sustainable products in the world. It s…

Links to teardowns like AvE does and quantitative reviews like Project Farm does can help users evaluate by themselves. You could add editorial value by assigning your own metrics based upon those.

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

#333

Post by smichel17 »

hubraumhugo wrote: post #2

A few months ago, I began developing the Buy For Life platform. It started as a simple list where people could add brands that manufacture durable products. It now evolved into a full platform with aggregated product reviews from all over the web, discussions, and various metrics to calculate a score for each brand and product. I want to help people finding the most durable and sustainable products in the world. It s…

> this project is completely non-commercial and entirely community-driven.

Would you be open to pressing the content cc-by-sa? That would make me more interested in contributing reviews.

Also, I went looking for your terms of service (to see if they mentioned licensing already), and all I found was a link to some Google page, even when I clicked to sign in "by email".

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

#334

Post by kag0 »

arendtio wrote: post #278
hubraumhugo wrote: post #2

A few months ago, I began developing the Buy For Life platform. It started as a simple list where people could add brands that manufacture durable products. It now evolved into a full platform with aggregated product reviews from all over the web, discussions, and various metrics to calculate a score for each brand and product. I want to help people finding the most durable and sustainable products in the world. It s…

Actually, I don't think that durability is the primary driver of my shopping decisions. I mean, I am a guy who still uses his 8 year old smartphone on a daily basis, so durability is relevant for me, but when I buy something, I want something good. So just because it is made of plastic and can be used for the next 350 years, doesn't mean I would enjoy using it for a single day. Duration is just one aspect of a high q…

I think you're missing half of the point. It's a _review_ site for durable products. Presumably the reviews will tell you if it is good.

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

#335

Post by smichel17 »

hubraumhugo wrote: post #246
gravypod wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a way to add an item as "I don't own this buy I want to know if anyone does"? I'm thinking of buying a https://www.terrakaffe.com/product/tk-01-b/ but I don't know how actually good it is and I can't find it on your site. I'd probably also be willing to put up ~$5 dollars to have someone check out the product. I'm not sure if you could turn that into an effective compensation model for reviewers.

Interesting idea, just added this idea/feature to my backlog :)

When you get there: Consider allowing people to say they own the product, without writing a review for it. Then, allow people to request reviews for that product, along with specific questions they have about it. Send an email to the people who said they owned the product including the prompt from the requester, and publish their responses as reviews (with question as context).

On the reviewer side, I'm much more interested in reviewing a product if I got a note from an actual human asking about it. And maybe a little harder to game, since generic review text can't be copy-pasted as easily.

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

#336

Post by jamesgeck0 »

Lio wrote: post #177
owenversteeg wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coffee makers are some of the few devices where this makes sense. While commercial things can occasionally save money, they usually don't. Furthermore, the TCO calculation has to take into account what you would have done with the same amount of money. Let's pretend you buy a $2000 commercial grade widget instead of the $500 consumer grade widget. Over ten years of use, your commercial grade widget cost $100 in parts…

I like some of this argument. It reminds me of the story of Warren Buffet not wanting to buy a $20K car because he said with discount to present value the opportunity cost would make it cost him $100K. On the other hand all things are not equal. Take laptops. You might think that a cheap one that costs a quarter of an expensive model would mean that you change it more often for the same cost. By the end of the upgrad…

> On the other hand all things are not equal. Take laptops. You might think that a cheap one that costs a quarter of an expensive model would mean that you change it more often for the same cost.

> By the end of the upgrade cycle you'd probably have a faster cheap laptop than the original expensive one and that might be true but you'd also have to live with the cheap keyboard and the cheap screen and the cheap build quality of the case.

It isn't actually the case that the cheap laptop would be faster, unfortunately. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison, but my $1000 i5 MacBook Air from 2013 is still a snappier machine than a recent $250 Celeron Chromebook.

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

#337

Post by scottlocklin »

Great idea; one I had considered myself, because I'm sick of buying garbage. There are two kind of rocks I saw it foundering on; one is luxury goods. Davok umbrellas; marketed as a luxury good -really, it's just a badass umbrella -maybe last one I ever need buy; very well made -almost worth what they cost.

The other rock it could founder on is green. I mean, if you buy something once, that's pretty green, but so often this sort of thing turns into sackcloth and ashes or absurd high fashion sackcloth and ashes that cost too much. The green variety is already a sort of consumer preference in Germany, but I think their idea has some "well made" meaning as well (nachhaltig? I dunno).

Here were a couple of places like that my German pals sent me early this year when I was thinking about it in earnest:

https://www.manufactum.de/

https://utopia.de/bestenlisten/onlineshops/

https://www.biber.de/

https://www.torquato.de/haus-wohnen/

Anyway, it's just a bunch of disconnected thoughts in my mind. Good on you for taking it further. I had thought the sibyl problem would make a rotten tomatoes type thing too difficult if it ever got juice (even if it didn't; bots are everywhere linking trash products). I had also thought it would be very difficult to scale as a manually proctored catalog of carefully assessed things, and it would be real easy to corrupt if you don't scale to the right kinds of reviewers.

The world does need more stuff like this. People who make shitty products should be punished.

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

#339

Post by smichel17 »

godot wrote: post #207
newsclues wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a poor person this is so valuable. Cheap boots are more expensive....

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…

FWIW, that particular cast iron pan seems to have some sort of ceramic coating, which.. makes it more nonstick or easier to clean, or something? I'm not sure. If you don't care about that, go for the $20 lodge cast iron pan, which will also last a lifetime.

But I agree with sibling comments, you don't need to buy quality for the stuff you rarely use. And/or, you may be able to not buy it at all. A high quality set of basic knives (chef+paring+serrated) and the acquired skill to use them can replace many kitchen gizmos.

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

#340

Post by baebeegeezus »

hubraumhugo wrote: post #2

A few months ago, I began developing the Buy For Life platform. It started as a simple list where people could add brands that manufacture durable products. It now evolved into a full platform with aggregated product reviews from all over the web, discussions, and various metrics to calculate a score for each brand and product. I want to help people finding the most durable and sustainable products in the world. It s…

Love it. Great idea.
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