9 ms·

I unfortunately share your experiences. However in Germany there is a foundation called “Stiftung Warentest” [1], which does independent testing of products. Wi

by trevex 5y ago

I unfortunately share your experiences. However in Germany there is a foundation called “Stiftung Warentest” [1], which does independent testing of products. With reviews full of Amazon affiliate links dominating search results, I tend to purchase their tests for ~3 Euros more often than ever. However this only works for popular product categories, but less so for specialized equipment. My impression is also that affiliate links hurt consumers in the long run as they reduce the selection of products in reviews or blogs to those the authors can earn money with. This however leaves out potential alternatives. More often than not the winner of product categories (at least those I was researching) of independent tests were not available from sites running affiliate programs. For example a consumer-grade lawn mower from an otherwise professional gardening company or a tent from a Scandinavian brand. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiftung_Warentest https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stiftung_Warentest

cortesoft 5y ago
The US has Consumer Reports, which is similar I think... but yeah, only works for major product categories.
- vlovich123 5y ago
  There’s also the NYT WireCutter which tried to do a good job isolating it away as an independent review source that you can trust.
  - short12 5y ago
    That fell to complete shit a while back. They are not wrong but I would ignore their rankings and focus on the review aspects
    - ghaff 5y ago
      I find Wirecutter and Consumer Reports are pretty reasonable for product categories where I just want a reasonable choice and don't necessarily have deep knowledge and preferences myself. And, yes, it's worth reading why they picked something. But if I were buying an interchangeable lens camera or a computer I might read their recommendation but I'd look elsewhere also. For a sprayer for a hose? I'm sure their recommendation is fine.
      - fmajid 5y ago
        No, for hoses they recommend ones with the archaic brass threaded fittings common in the US instead of the far superior Gardena type.
  - hnov 5y ago
    Some of the WireCutter’s picks were fairly terrible, which makes sense: testing diverse categories of products is too expensive for affiliate links to cover. I’ve gifted dashcams on their recommendation that shot beautiful QHD but had MTBF measured in single digit months. The TP-Link C7 Archer was kind of a turd and within a stone’s throw of a decent router price-wise.
    - seanp2k2 5y ago
      I’ve written extensively about this recently, but these days with $300+ “gaming” routers using crappy sweatshop software on whatever Atheros router SoC, many users would be much better served with legit SMB routing / switching / wifi systems that are available for around the same price.
      - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
        I've always found anything tagged as "gaming" to be lower quality and more expensive than the business machines. ==== This message sent from a Thinkpad business machine that I use for gaming (and ML, theoretically).
        bobthepanda 5y ago
        I mean this is a known thing in general; the best kitchen supply stuff you can buy is often stuff intended for commercial use, because it quite literally goes through the wringer with near-constant usage over long periods of time. The problem is finding a place that sells commercial things to individual buyers. That, and sometimes what a commercial kitchen needs is vastly oversized for a regular house; you're probably going to set off your residential fire alarm very often with a massive commercial range designed for woks, for example, unless you also upgrade the ventilation, etc.
      - kayodelycaon 5y ago
        I didn’t know what good Wifi until I switched to using some TP-Link Omada equipment. If you run your own controller, you can set up a small network (router, PoE switch, and AP) for less than $300. Hardware controller is ~$90. A controller isn’t strictly necessary, but I don’t recommend doing a standalone setup. Downside? It’s business class equipment and you need some idea what you’re doing. It’s not plug-n-play. Also, it’s layer 2 only. If you want mDNS across vlans, you’ll need to run a reflector. (Not difficult. It’s built into avahi.)
  - michaelmrose 5y ago
    Bought a pair of audio-technica headphones based on their review. Sound quality was as described but it was so uncomfortable I returned it 5 minutes after picking it up. It was described as comfortable for long wear but it had a hard band with little padding and was uncomfortable for any duration.
    - thirdsun 5y ago
      Comfort is a pretty subjective thing. Your experience, while valid, is merely a single data point and it would be quite premature to disregard the review or even the whole outlet based on it.
  - greggman3 5y ago
    My experience with NYT product reviews is pretty awful. I wish I could be more concrete. Tried to look in my history but I could have sworn at least one article was just effectively, "top 10 most popular on Amazon", with quotes from user reviews. Maybe I'm getting my sites mixed up.
    - KarlKemp 5y ago
      Yes, you are definitely confusing something. And someone.
    - derbOac 5y ago
      I believe you're thinking of The Strategist, which is through New York Magazine. That's basically their thing, to summarize Amazon reviews for you and filter through a product category based on that. I also don't really see much of the value in it, but I suppose I can see how someone might.
- xiphias2 5y ago
  I’m a subscriber to consumer reports, but as it put Tesla Model 3, the most successful car in the past few years on the back as the least reliable, I feel that I can’t trust its results to be 100% independent reviews. I don’t have a Tesla, but if something grows so fast where people pay a significant amount for it, it can’t be that bad.
  - KarlKemp 5y ago
    Tesla is well known to whip cars with sometimes dozens of minor issues. It’s a new company and these processes need time and experience. The reliability data also is likely sourced from outside, such as the AAA, insurers, or any other place where car trouble data naturally accumulates.
    - xiphias2 5y ago
      I see...it's interesting that they can get away with it while growing so fast
      - maxdo 5y ago
        Tesla got it's fair share of issues, but they fix them and detect them fast. They adamant about security. Only Tesla and Volvo got their own testing facilities. Last recall of backup camera is actually a positive call. On a very small group of cars they got this issue. They called it a defect and recalled an entire batch ( 500k cars) to fix a potential issue.
  - aix1 5y ago
    I don't know anything about how reliable or not Model 3 is, but surely reliability != popularity?
    - xiphias2 5y ago
      It’s the growth that’s staggering. What I read is that older car companies changed the rating to include small software bugs in the entertainment system. As Tesla has much more non-essential features, these while these small bugs are not that important for the end user, can bring the ratings down vs other cars that don’t even offer the feature.
- awslattery 5y ago
  Rtings is my go-to for most things. Been satisfied with several purchases researched there.
- mcguire 5y ago
  For kitchen tools, there's America's Test Kitchen reviews (from Cooking magazine, IIRC). It's a limited segment but high quality. On the other hand, it has the same problem as Consumer Reports: they only test and review a single model which will probably be out of production before you need one. On the third hand, if one manufacturer consistently gets good reviews (OXO Goodgrips, for example)...
  - MartinCron 5y ago
    Cooks Illustrated is the name of the magazine, and I recommend it to anyone who ever spends time in a kitchen. Some of the purchases I have made with their guidance have been (trivially) life-changing.
    - mcguire 5y ago
      You are absolutely right! Sorry about that --- I zoned out on the magazine's name.
emsy 5y ago
I have used their tests in the past and I’ve never regretted a purchase influenced by their tests.
tucosan 5y ago
Sadly, Stiftung Warentest often doesn't have the expertise to properly test many products. I often notice the shortcomings in product tests for products that I know and use. I was reminded of this with their last test of 3d printers. Their test results where far from what everyone with experience in the field would consider accurate.
- mschild 5y ago
  For some products, I agree, but realistically its about as good as it gets unless you do thorough research on a given product and are actually able to find a somewhat unbiased review. Take washing machines for example. How do you know which ones are good and which ones are not? Public reviews from any website tend to only be a good indicator if there a lots of bad ones. I have 0 faith in the average consumer to accurately rate a product. Overwhelmingly negative reviews will clearly show a deficiency but positive ones are unfortunately more and more a gamble. Stiftung Warentest isn't perfect, but they do, on most occasions, put in a high amount of effort to test products to the best of their abilities without any personal opinions. I don't know of a single other person/organization/website where that is the case.
  - petra 5y ago
    Most washing machines offer quit similar features. The key difference is reliability. Testing for reliability is expensive, so most likely Stiftung Warentest and similar companies don't do that.
    - 14 5y ago
      My brand new LG turbowasher model lasted 3 months before one morning sounded like a hammer smashing something. I ran to the machine and a support bracket inside had broken. It took 2 months for them to replace it I was not impressed. It has since lasted 3 more years no issues but I doubt I would go with LG in the future since it was a horrible customer service experience getting my first one repairs under warranty. Had they helped me better after it breaking I may have said it was just a fluke and still recommended them.
    - 5y ago
kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
They are OK, but I remember when they decided a Nokia phone was better than an iPhone. Tests usually have subjective criteria that determine the ranking.
amelius 5y ago
> which does independent testing of products Can we have some independent testing of web search engines?
thih9 5y ago
Rtings seems a similar project; some of their test results are free, some are paid. They have a wide set of comparison tools, they test for a lot of features and they document their testing procedures well; it's a really nice change from SEO spam articles. I recommend their tests of headphones [1], I especially like how they measure breatability [2]. They also have a page about printers [3]. [1]: https://www.rtings.com/headphones https://www.rtings.com/headphones [2]: https://www.rtings.com/headphones/tests/design/breathability https://www.rtings.com/headphones/tests/design/breathability [3]: https://www.rtings.com/printer https://www.rtings.com/printer
- sharken 5y ago
  Used Gsmarena.com to narrow down which Android-based phone would be the best choice. Ended up with the OnePlus 8T due to good battery life, fast charging and reasonable size. Still very happy with that purchase, which wouldn't have been as easy without that site.
  - thirdsun 5y ago
    Finding review of tech gadgets and hardware is quite easy. Even niche products usually have dedicated communities and sites with in-depth knowledge. It's the boring everyday products and large appliances like washing machines that are really hard to evaluate sicne their reviews basically amount to affiliate spam.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- littlecranky67 5y ago
  Thanks for the links, but especially the printer one is exactly what I was talking about: They are all marked as unavailable on the site.
ohashi 5y ago
I'm in a strange position here. I fundamentally agree that reviews for the most part are absolute steaming pile of crap of a space for many niches. I work in one of the worst - web hosting reviews. It's plagued by fake affiliate reviews dominating basically every search result. I've been trying for 10 years to run a company that did reviews differently in the web hosting space. Full disclosure, I have affiliate links on companies that have them too. But I also list companies without them and it has had zero bearing on any result in 10 years. In fact, when I launched I had to beg the CEO of the top rated company to create a special affiliate program for me. Why? Because he didn't believe in review sites and affiliates in the space. It took months, but I told him if he didn't create one, what I was trying to do would never have a chance because I'd never make a dollar - you're the top rated company. I want to do something different, but it needs to remain somewhat financially viable and if you don't have a program I'm dead before it starts. So what happened in those 10 years? Honestly, not a whole a lot. I have mediocre rankings (often page 2-5) on some of the most competitive terms on Google. I can't afford to buy the links my competitors do because they make 10x or more what I do pushing the highest paying affiliates and designing for conversion. The site has some traction within niche communities - especially the WordPress hosting space - because I also run annual performance benchmarks (https://wphostingbenchmarks.com https://wphostingbenchmarks.com) where I document and thoroughly test most of the meaningful players in that space. It makes a couple grand a month, I've disclosed the revenue publicly on IndieHackers (https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/reviewsignal-e1ddcc26ac https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/reviewsignal-e1ddcc26...) and it's gone down since then. The data I'm providing is almost surely the most transparent data tracking the industry and maybe the least biased (the reviews work by analyzing Twitter sentiment at scale - everything publicly documented in terms of ranking algorithm and published comments). But outside little bubbles in communities that care, nobody noticed. Google doesn't care. Google happily ranks affiliate sites spending six figures buying links off apache.org and other open source projects (look at those sponsor lists on a lot of open source projects - hosting/gambling is a bad sign). I got excited when my work fighting against .ORG registry price increases and sale at ICANN (https://reviewsignal.com/blog/2019/06/24/the-case-for-regulatory-capture-at-icann/ https://reviewsignal.com/blog/2019/06/24/the-case-for-regula...) got a lot of press, even getting cited by the California AG in his letter which effectively killed it. I got backlinks from a lot of large news sites and traffic. I honestly saw no meaningful improvement in rankings or traffic. So I'm stuck, I keep the sites running - part time - mostly between other projects. I've moved back heavily into consulting and other projects because being an honest affiliate - I can't compete. Providing honest, transparent data and presenting it with the goal of informing versus pushing sales is a terrible business model. The majority of people simply don't care. A lot of 'in-the-know' folks read and get informed by my work. They advise their clients using it, and I never see any financial benefit from it. The broader world, especially Google, doesn't know or care. Is the root problem affiliate links? It certainly skews incentives and pushes manipulation. If we removed them, what fills the void? Ads? Sponsored content? Something else? I don't think the problem goes away - there is so much money in some of these industries and the stakes are so high. Companies and people will take advantage of it one way or another. How do we identify honest / good content from the garbage seems to be the bigger question. After 10 years, I'm don't have an answer and I'm certainly not being noticed.
hubraumhugo 5y ago
I was always fascinated by the idea of "field testers" testing products in their daily lives and writing a short review about their experience. A cook would write about a chef knife, a post officer about comfortable all-weather boots, a craftsman about a tool etc. The biggest problem would be how to incentivize such people, but gamification and some monetary rewards from the community could probably solve this.
- MartinCron 5y ago
  A big part of the best wire cutter reviews are the “why you should trust me” introduction. Some of their reviewers really know their stuff, others obviously less so. You can calibrate your expectations accordingly.
frabcus 5y ago
Which? https://www.which.co.uk/ https://www.which.co.uk/ is great, based in the UK, not very expensive to join for a month to look up one product.
- SirYandi 5y ago
  Just one data point, but I've had a hard time trusting then since reading a headphones section they had in the physical magazine quite a few years back. The number one rated headphone was the Bose QC3. Great noise cancellation and comfort, sure... But certainly not better audio quality than so many other products in that price range. All rock / metal sounded so muddy I had to return my pair within a few weeks.

by trevex 5y ago

cortesoft 5y ago

The US has Consumer Reports, which is similar I think... but yeah, only works for major product categories.

vlovich123 5y ago
There’s also the NYT WireCutter which tried to do a good job isolating it away as an independent review source that you can trust.
- short12 5y ago
  That fell to complete shit a while back. They are not wrong but I would ignore their rankings and focus on the review aspects
  - ghaff 5y ago
    I find Wirecutter and Consumer Reports are pretty reasonable for product categories where I just want a reasonable choice and don't necessarily have deep knowledge and preferences myself. And, yes, it's worth reading why they picked something. But if I were buying an interchangeable lens camera or a computer I might read their recommendation but I'd look elsewhere also. For a sprayer for a hose? I'm sure their recommendation is fine.
    - fmajid 5y ago
      No, for hoses they recommend ones with the archaic brass threaded fittings common in the US instead of the far superior Gardena type.
- hnov 5y ago
  Some of the WireCutter’s picks were fairly terrible, which makes sense: testing diverse categories of products is too expensive for affiliate links to cover. I’ve gifted dashcams on their recommendation that shot beautiful QHD but had MTBF measured in single digit months. The TP-Link C7 Archer was kind of a turd and within a stone’s throw of a decent router price-wise.
  - seanp2k2 5y ago
    I’ve written extensively about this recently, but these days with $300+ “gaming” routers using crappy sweatshop software on whatever Atheros router SoC, many users would be much better served with legit SMB routing / switching / wifi systems that are available for around the same price.
    - disgruntledphd2 5y ago
      I've always found anything tagged as "gaming" to be lower quality and more expensive than the business machines. ==== This message sent from a Thinkpad business machine that I use for gaming (and ML, theoretically).
      - bobthepanda 5y ago
        I mean this is a known thing in general; the best kitchen supply stuff you can buy is often stuff intended for commercial use, because it quite literally goes through the wringer with near-constant usage over long periods of time. The problem is finding a place that sells commercial things to individual buyers. That, and sometimes what a commercial kitchen needs is vastly oversized for a regular house; you're probably going to set off your residential fire alarm very often with a massive commercial range designed for woks, for example, unless you also upgrade the ventilation, etc.
    - kayodelycaon 5y ago
      I didn’t know what good Wifi until I switched to using some TP-Link Omada equipment. If you run your own controller, you can set up a small network (router, PoE switch, and AP) for less than $300. Hardware controller is ~$90. A controller isn’t strictly necessary, but I don’t recommend doing a standalone setup. Downside? It’s business class equipment and you need some idea what you’re doing. It’s not plug-n-play. Also, it’s layer 2 only. If you want mDNS across vlans, you’ll need to run a reflector. (Not difficult. It’s built into avahi.)
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  Bought a pair of audio-technica headphones based on their review. Sound quality was as described but it was so uncomfortable I returned it 5 minutes after picking it up. It was described as comfortable for long wear but it had a hard band with little padding and was uncomfortable for any duration.
  - thirdsun 5y ago
    Comfort is a pretty subjective thing. Your experience, while valid, is merely a single data point and it would be quite premature to disregard the review or even the whole outlet based on it.
- greggman3 5y ago
  My experience with NYT product reviews is pretty awful. I wish I could be more concrete. Tried to look in my history but I could have sworn at least one article was just effectively, "top 10 most popular on Amazon", with quotes from user reviews. Maybe I'm getting my sites mixed up.
  - KarlKemp 5y ago
    Yes, you are definitely confusing something. And someone.
  - derbOac 5y ago
    I believe you're thinking of The Strategist, which is through New York Magazine. That's basically their thing, to summarize Amazon reviews for you and filter through a product category based on that. I also don't really see much of the value in it, but I suppose I can see how someone might.
xiphias2 5y ago
I’m a subscriber to consumer reports, but as it put Tesla Model 3, the most successful car in the past few years on the back as the least reliable, I feel that I can’t trust its results to be 100% independent reviews. I don’t have a Tesla, but if something grows so fast where people pay a significant amount for it, it can’t be that bad.
- KarlKemp 5y ago
  Tesla is well known to whip cars with sometimes dozens of minor issues. It’s a new company and these processes need time and experience. The reliability data also is likely sourced from outside, such as the AAA, insurers, or any other place where car trouble data naturally accumulates.
  - xiphias2 5y ago
    I see...it's interesting that they can get away with it while growing so fast
    - maxdo 5y ago
      Tesla got it's fair share of issues, but they fix them and detect them fast. They adamant about security. Only Tesla and Volvo got their own testing facilities. Last recall of backup camera is actually a positive call. On a very small group of cars they got this issue. They called it a defect and recalled an entire batch ( 500k cars) to fix a potential issue.
- aix1 5y ago
  I don't know anything about how reliable or not Model 3 is, but surely reliability != popularity?
  - xiphias2 5y ago
    It’s the growth that’s staggering. What I read is that older car companies changed the rating to include small software bugs in the entertainment system. As Tesla has much more non-essential features, these while these small bugs are not that important for the end user, can bring the ratings down vs other cars that don’t even offer the feature.
awslattery 5y ago
Rtings is my go-to for most things. Been satisfied with several purchases researched there.
mcguire 5y ago
For kitchen tools, there's America's Test Kitchen reviews (from Cooking magazine, IIRC). It's a limited segment but high quality. On the other hand, it has the same problem as Consumer Reports: they only test and review a single model which will probably be out of production before you need one. On the third hand, if one manufacturer consistently gets good reviews (OXO Goodgrips, for example)...
- MartinCron 5y ago
  Cooks Illustrated is the name of the magazine, and I recommend it to anyone who ever spends time in a kitchen. Some of the purchases I have made with their guidance have been (trivially) life-changing.
  - mcguire 5y ago
    You are absolutely right! Sorry about that --- I zoned out on the magazine's name.

emsy 5y ago

I have used their tests in the past and I’ve never regretted a purchase influenced by their tests.

tucosan 5y ago

Sadly, Stiftung Warentest often doesn't have the expertise to properly test many products. I often notice the shortcomings in product tests for products that I know and use. I was reminded of this with their last test of 3d printers. Their test results where far from what everyone with experience in the field would consider accurate.

mschild 5y ago
For some products, I agree, but realistically its about as good as it gets unless you do thorough research on a given product and are actually able to find a somewhat unbiased review. Take washing machines for example. How do you know which ones are good and which ones are not? Public reviews from any website tend to only be a good indicator if there a lots of bad ones. I have 0 faith in the average consumer to accurately rate a product. Overwhelmingly negative reviews will clearly show a deficiency but positive ones are unfortunately more and more a gamble. Stiftung Warentest isn't perfect, but they do, on most occasions, put in a high amount of effort to test products to the best of their abilities without any personal opinions. I don't know of a single other person/organization/website where that is the case.
- petra 5y ago
  Most washing machines offer quit similar features. The key difference is reliability. Testing for reliability is expensive, so most likely Stiftung Warentest and similar companies don't do that.
  - 14 5y ago
    My brand new LG turbowasher model lasted 3 months before one morning sounded like a hammer smashing something. I ran to the machine and a support bracket inside had broken. It took 2 months for them to replace it I was not impressed. It has since lasted 3 more years no issues but I doubt I would go with LG in the future since it was a horrible customer service experience getting my first one repairs under warranty. Had they helped me better after it breaking I may have said it was just a fluke and still recommended them.
  - 5y ago

kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago

They are OK, but I remember when they decided a Nokia phone was better than an iPhone. Tests usually have subjective criteria that determine the ranking.

amelius 5y ago

> which does independent testing of products Can we have some independent testing of web search engines?

thih9 5y ago

Rtings seems a similar project; some of their test results are free, some are paid. They have a wide set of comparison tools, they test for a lot of features and they document their testing procedures well; it's a really nice change from SEO spam articles. I recommend their tests of headphones [1], I especially like how they measure breatability [2]. They also have a page about printers [3]. [1]: https://www.rtings.com/headphones https://www.rtings.com/headphones [2]: https://www.rtings.com/headphones/tests/design/breathability https://www.rtings.com/headphones/tests/design/breathability [3]: https://www.rtings.com/printer https://www.rtings.com/printer

sharken 5y ago
Used Gsmarena.com to narrow down which Android-based phone would be the best choice. Ended up with the OnePlus 8T due to good battery life, fast charging and reasonable size. Still very happy with that purchase, which wouldn't have been as easy without that site.
- thirdsun 5y ago
  Finding review of tech gadgets and hardware is quite easy. Even niche products usually have dedicated communities and sites with in-depth knowledge. It's the boring everyday products and large appliances like washing machines that are really hard to evaluate sicne their reviews basically amount to affiliate spam.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
littlecranky67 5y ago
Thanks for the links, but especially the printer one is exactly what I was talking about: They are all marked as unavailable on the site.

ohashi 5y ago

I'm in a strange position here. I fundamentally agree that reviews for the most part are absolute steaming pile of crap of a space for many niches. I work in one of the worst - web hosting reviews. It's plagued by fake affiliate reviews dominating basically every search result. I've been trying for 10 years to run a company that did reviews differently in the web hosting space. Full disclosure, I have affiliate links on companies that have them too. But I also list companies without them and it has had zero bearing on any result in 10 years. In fact, when I launched I had to beg the CEO of the top rated company to create a special affiliate program for me. Why? Because he didn't believe in review sites and affiliates in the space. It took months, but I told him if he didn't create one, what I was trying to do would never have a chance because I'd never make a dollar - you're the top rated company. I want to do something different, but it needs to remain somewhat financially viable and if you don't have a program I'm dead before it starts. So what happened in those 10 years? Honestly, not a whole a lot. I have mediocre rankings (often page 2-5) on some of the most competitive terms on Google. I can't afford to buy the links my competitors do because they make 10x or more what I do pushing the highest paying affiliates and designing for conversion. The site has some traction within niche communities - especially the WordPress hosting space - because I also run annual performance benchmarks (https://wphostingbenchmarks.com https://wphostingbenchmarks.com) where I document and thoroughly test most of the meaningful players in that space. It makes a couple grand a month, I've disclosed the revenue publicly on IndieHackers (https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/reviewsignal-e1ddcc26ac https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/reviewsignal-e1ddcc26...) and it's gone down since then. The data I'm providing is almost surely the most transparent data tracking the industry and maybe the least biased (the reviews work by analyzing Twitter sentiment at scale - everything publicly documented in terms of ranking algorithm and published comments). But outside little bubbles in communities that care, nobody noticed. Google doesn't care. Google happily ranks affiliate sites spending six figures buying links off apache.org and other open source projects (look at those sponsor lists on a lot of open source projects - hosting/gambling is a bad sign). I got excited when my work fighting against .ORG registry price increases and sale at ICANN (https://reviewsignal.com/blog/2019/06/24/the-case-for-regulatory-capture-at-icann/ https://reviewsignal.com/blog/2019/06/24/the-case-for-regula...) got a lot of press, even getting cited by the California AG in his letter which effectively killed it. I got backlinks from a lot of large news sites and traffic. I honestly saw no meaningful improvement in rankings or traffic. So I'm stuck, I keep the sites running - part time - mostly between other projects. I've moved back heavily into consulting and other projects because being an honest affiliate - I can't compete. Providing honest, transparent data and presenting it with the goal of informing versus pushing sales is a terrible business model. The majority of people simply don't care. A lot of 'in-the-know' folks read and get informed by my work. They advise their clients using it, and I never see any financial benefit from it. The broader world, especially Google, doesn't know or care. Is the root problem affiliate links? It certainly skews incentives and pushes manipulation. If we removed them, what fills the void? Ads? Sponsored content? Something else? I don't think the problem goes away - there is so much money in some of these industries and the stakes are so high. Companies and people will take advantage of it one way or another. How do we identify honest / good content from the garbage seems to be the bigger question. After 10 years, I'm don't have an answer and I'm certainly not being noticed.

hubraumhugo 5y ago

I was always fascinated by the idea of "field testers" testing products in their daily lives and writing a short review about their experience. A cook would write about a chef knife, a post officer about comfortable all-weather boots, a craftsman about a tool etc. The biggest problem would be how to incentivize such people, but gamification and some monetary rewards from the community could probably solve this.

MartinCron 5y ago
A big part of the best wire cutter reviews are the “why you should trust me” introduction. Some of their reviewers really know their stuff, others obviously less so. You can calibrate your expectations accordingly.

frabcus 5y ago

Which? https://www.which.co.uk/ https://www.which.co.uk/ is great, based in the UK, not very expensive to join for a month to look up one product.

SirYandi 5y ago
Just one data point, but I've had a hard time trusting then since reading a headphones section they had in the physical magazine quite a few years back. The number one rated headphone was the Bose QC3. Great noise cancellation and comfort, sure... But certainly not better audio quality than so many other products in that price range. All rock / metal sounded so muddy I had to return my pair within a few weeks.