The problem is every single site like that turns into an affiliate garbage-fest where you are paying for the "top-rated" item based on the biggest affiliate fee

The problem is every single site like that turns into an affiliate garbage-fest where you are paying for the "top-rated" item based on the biggest affiliate fee it pays. Sure it looks legit because they only pick what appear to be all high quality items that still pay good affiliate money. Hard to make money otherwise as someone will always see your traffic and make it really worth your while for you to cross the line on recommendations, and hey, since you never meet or see the people who use your site and they'll probably only buy once, why not? You can't really trust any site or article about quality or ratings, because they all exist solely to do this, or it's some random dude's blog that you'll never actually find or believe in anyway. If he does get traffic he decides he wants to make a go at making money, and whoops, there we go again! Of course you could run a real store with inventory and such, but man that's too much work when the other way is so easy.