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In most cases I would agree, but in the case of tech reviewers? I actually kind of don't. Let me explain. Tech reviewers have been flying under the radar a lit

In most cases I would agree, but in the case of tech reviewers? I actually kind of don't. Let me explain. Tech reviewers have been flying under the radar a little bit, in what they do is actually already a form of advertisement. But wait, most of them are not really paid to review things... they're just given products for free in most cases that they have to return and so on. In reality this simply means the cost of the product is actually off-set to the users. When LTT gets the brand new nvidia graphics card (which he will return after testing) what he is doing is promoting the product and in my opinion he should be paid for that. By nvidia. Not by us. Truly this is a very weird state of things, companies are getting tons of extremely cheap marketing (the cost is basically sending review units out) and there is a whole set of journalists that take advantage of our consumerism to generate content. Now, is this really a win for all? I don't think so. In reality, I think, by using adblock you are sort of taking the cover off this completely irrational system. Why do we have to watch advertisement to watch advertisement? Reviews are obviously interesting, we want to buy good products and with so much offer it might get tricky to choose what is the best; but the way youtube reviews are sustained I believe is harmful to our interests... LTT do a great job to promote products for brands and that's why they are always some of the first to get review units but they are not some little joe talking about their experience with the phone they bought. So I guess my point is kinda that professional reviewers are part of the advertisement machine and pretty much serve as a way of advertisement laundry for companies and like that maybe there's not really a need for them to exist as reviews are compiled and aggregated over the internet anyway. But idk, it's a difficult topic!

esyir 5y ago
>Truly this is a very weird state of things, companies are getting tons of extremely cheap marketing (the cost is basically sending review units out) and there is a whole set of journalists that take advantage of our consumerism to generate content. Now, is this really a win for all? I don't think so. I would say it is. Provided the coverage of the product's features is accurate and not misleading, if I see a product that I think is neat and buy it because of that, that's a win-win. I have something I like, the company gets money, and the reviewer gets content. This is basically advertising's idealized form. It only gets shady if there's misrepresentation of the product, or any of the other hacks. >There's not really a need for them to exist as reviews are compiled and aggregated over the internet anyway. But idk, it's a difficult topic! You wish, and I do too. One of the main features of a tech reviewer is relative consistency in review process. A GPU's performance is going to change drastically with the different devices with case, cooler and even climate affecting performance. Reviewers provide a degree of consistency there which cannot be replicated by the public at large. This can be somewhat mitigated by sufficient scale, but generally you're going to have to do far more work here. Note that one of the most common forms of compiled reviews are compilations of said tech reviewer's observed results.

esyir 5y ago

>Truly this is a very weird state of things, companies are getting tons of extremely cheap marketing (the cost is basically sending review units out) and there is a whole set of journalists that take advantage of our consumerism to generate content. Now, is this really a win for all? I don't think so. I would say it is. Provided the coverage of the product's features is accurate and not misleading, if I see a product that I think is neat and buy it because of that, that's a win-win. I have something I like, the company gets money, and the reviewer gets content. This is basically advertising's idealized form. It only gets shady if there's misrepresentation of the product, or any of the other hacks. >There's not really a need for them to exist as reviews are compiled and aggregated over the internet anyway. But idk, it's a difficult topic! You wish, and I do too. One of the main features of a tech reviewer is relative consistency in review process. A GPU's performance is going to change drastically with the different devices with case, cooler and even climate affecting performance. Reviewers provide a degree of consistency there which cannot be replicated by the public at large. This can be somewhat mitigated by sufficient scale, but generally you're going to have to do far more work here. Note that one of the most common forms of compiled reviews are compilations of said tech reviewer's observed results.