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A central review clearinghouse will never happen with cheap accessories like this. If model "1234-X" gets bad reviews, the same product will just be renumbered

A central review clearinghouse will never happen with cheap accessories like this. If model "1234-X" gets bad reviews, the same product will just be renumbered to model "9863-V2" and even the company name may change. So there's no way to keep reviews associated with the same product -- it's the same reason why there are no good review sites for mattresses across all retailers -- the manufacturers use a variety of names and product numbers for mattresses sold to different retailers, specifically to obfuscate them.

vonmoltke 11y ago
What's worse in the cheap accessories market is it is highly likely that groups of companies are buying and repackaging the exact same cables from the same manufacturer and slapping their own names and part numbers on them. So even if two companies are legitimately different, the product may not be.
tetrep 11y ago
companies doding bad reviews means that companies with good reviews will stand out, making selection easier. as a consumer, i don't care about crappy products unless i end up purchasing them. i can avoid crappy products by only going for products with explicit positive reviews that i can trust. sure a grey area will continue to exist, but whitelisting is still effective for reviews, even if we can't blacklist.
TillE 11y ago
Yeah, you'd need to cooperate with the manufacturer to "certify" only one exact product, and make sure that the certification is revoked when anything is changed. The mattress issue actually sounds like a solvable problem, if you're willing to put in the effort. It's just not really worth it when you can also buy mattresses from IKEA or various online retailers which don't engage in those tactics.
- mschuster91 11y ago
  > It's just not really worth it when you can also buy mattresses from IKEA or various online retailers which don't engage in those tactics. IKEA manufactures wherever possible for the lowest price. The difference is that IKEA employs quality control measures.
seagreen 11y ago
That can be part of the reviews. "This product may look good, but Company X which makes it has a history of ninja-changes to their products." A central (well, really federated would be better) is one of the most needed tech innovations today, because it will make the market for so many other products function more efficiently.
eropple 11y ago
This is a really big thing. If you look at, say, a 10-port USB3 hub on Amazon, you will see the exact same thing, down to the boards (to say nothing of the casing), being sold under three or four different brands.
- vidarh 11y ago
  The thing is for a lot of low level electronics, you can buy "identical" products from a range of manufacturers, so while I know what you're describing happens too, it's tricky because there are also plenty of designs that "make the rounds" (e.g. lots of products are just tiny variations over reference designs from a chipset designer - you see this a lot with low end Chinese tablets, which are often almost-but-not-quite identical variations over what appears to be AllWinner and MTK reference designs).
  - eropple 11y ago
    Definitely. In this case, these are literally identical boxes I'm talking about (I have three from the same manufacturer, they put the same company name on the inside of the case).

vonmoltke 11y ago

What's worse in the cheap accessories market is it is highly likely that groups of companies are buying and repackaging the exact same cables from the same manufacturer and slapping their own names and part numbers on them. So even if two companies are legitimately different, the product may not be.

tetrep 11y ago

companies doding bad reviews means that companies with good reviews will stand out, making selection easier. as a consumer, i don't care about crappy products unless i end up purchasing them. i can avoid crappy products by only going for products with explicit positive reviews that i can trust. sure a grey area will continue to exist, but whitelisting is still effective for reviews, even if we can't blacklist.

TillE 11y ago

Yeah, you'd need to cooperate with the manufacturer to "certify" only one exact product, and make sure that the certification is revoked when anything is changed. The mattress issue actually sounds like a solvable problem, if you're willing to put in the effort. It's just not really worth it when you can also buy mattresses from IKEA or various online retailers which don't engage in those tactics.

mschuster91 11y ago
> It's just not really worth it when you can also buy mattresses from IKEA or various online retailers which don't engage in those tactics. IKEA manufactures wherever possible for the lowest price. The difference is that IKEA employs quality control measures.

seagreen 11y ago

That can be part of the reviews. "This product may look good, but Company X which makes it has a history of ninja-changes to their products." A central (well, really federated would be better) is one of the most needed tech innovations today, because it will make the market for so many other products function more efficiently.

eropple 11y ago

This is a really big thing. If you look at, say, a 10-port USB3 hub on Amazon, you will see the exact same thing, down to the boards (to say nothing of the casing), being sold under three or four different brands.

vidarh 11y ago
The thing is for a lot of low level electronics, you can buy "identical" products from a range of manufacturers, so while I know what you're describing happens too, it's tricky because there are also plenty of designs that "make the rounds" (e.g. lots of products are just tiny variations over reference designs from a chipset designer - you see this a lot with low end Chinese tablets, which are often almost-but-not-quite identical variations over what appears to be AllWinner and MTK reference designs).
- eropple 11y ago
  Definitely. In this case, these are literally identical boxes I'm talking about (I have three from the same manufacturer, they put the same company name on the inside of the case).