>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

>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.