6 ms·

Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but the IKEA one which they singled out as not recommended to buy is the only one in the article they don't earn a commission o

Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but the IKEA one which they singled out as not recommended to buy is the only one in the article they don't earn a commission on when someone buys it

elromulous 4y ago
This is definitely not a conspiracy theory. Incentives affect reviews, which is why truly unbiased review sources exist.
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  Especially when they already have a proven track record of nastiness: https://www.xdesk.com/wirecutter-standing-desk-review-pay-to-play-model https://www.xdesk.com/wirecutter-standing-desk-review-pay-to...
  - GavinMcG 4y ago
    I've used the Wirecutter, so I'm not going to claim to be totally unbiased. But I'm just not seeing any nastiness there: the reason they gave for switching their recommendation (while retaining their original recommendation as an upgrade pick) seems entirely legitimate. And as much as the company wants to emphasize the use of the word "kickback" it's not really apt: Wirecutter's model has always been affiliate linking, and that's exactly what they reached out about in their first and second emails. And when turned down, they still published the recommendation and (later) still identified it as the best option if cost isn't an issue.
    - Nextgrid 4y ago
      But the problem is that it ultimately skews the incentives and contradicts their claim that the editors are totally isolated from the commercial part of their business. Their homepage currently suggests the following: > We independently review everything we recommend. When you buy through our links, we may earn a commission [emphasis mine] The "about" page claims: > There’s no incentive for us to pick inferior products or to respond to pressure from manufacturers—in fact, it’s quite the opposite [emphasis mine] That's not really true when the same person who writes the reviews is the one trying to solicit kickbacks in the background, and puts the credibility of the entire website into question. Their adjusted review could be completely legitimate but there's no way to be sure so it's better to err on the side of caution.
      - GavinMcG 4y ago
        Sure, and I'm not saying there's no possible influence in any direction. At the same time, I suspect things are more separate than in 2014, and I don't see that claim on their pages from back then [0][1]. In fact they seemed to have independently reviewed the desks and only then asked about an affiliate program. When they switched their recommendation to Fully, they apparently didn't have an affiliate relationship with them, either. NextDesk calls that "false" — but based on Wirecutter linking to Amazon to earn a commission. That's a bizarre conflation (although like you said it's not nothing) but it's what Wirecutter usually did regardless of the product, and they were up front about it at the time [1]. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20150603092537/https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-standing-desk/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150603092537/https://thewirecu... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20150518125823/http://thewirecutter.com/how-to-support-the-wirecutter/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150518125823/http://thewirecut... (Wirecutter used the word "kickback" here, too, so if anything it seems like they were trying to be as uncharitable as possible about their own model.)
        lozenge 4y ago
        Wirecutter's "business team" won't let their "editorial team" review the new iterations of the NextDesk product because if their "unbiased recommendation" is NextDesk, revenue will go down. The CEO was explicit in his email that he looks to maximise revenue on the standing desks page (and by implication, every other page on the site). The "business team" was explicit - the editorial team doesn't act directly, they can only get review units arranged by the business team - which is refusing to receive review units because no affiliate program is in place.
        GavinMcG 4y ago
        Eight years ago, right? Are they refusing now? (Genuinely curious if you've got up-to-date info. If they are terribly biased I want to know it, so I can downgrade my trust, which is why I upvoted the OP about the air purifier.) Also, it's not really clear to me that "independently review" has to mean "we completely isolate any business-related decision-making from editorial functions" as Nextgrid seems to assume.
  - elromulous 4y ago
    Oh wow! I hadn't seen this. Thanks for sharing.
- hammock 4y ago
  Sometimes conspiracy theories are true. They are still conspiracy theories
  - CharlesW 4y ago
    “A conspiracy theory is not the same as a conspiracy; instead, it refers to a hypothesized conspiracy…” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Exactly, if they're true it's a conspiracy fact or just a conspiracy. And even if they do NOT take kickbacks, there's no financial incentive at all to "link" to a sales page that doesn't offer affiliate links, where there is one to link. And so the best way to handle this is to not review at all products that aren't available through said sites. Think Southwest tickets not being available from aggregators.
      - CharlesW 4y ago
        > And even if they do NOT take kickbacks, there's no financial incentive at all to "link" to a sales page that doesn't offer affiliate links… And yet Wirecutter does this. https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-stuff-from-ikea/ https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-stuff-from-i...
    - jstanley 4y ago
      A conspiracy is when people collude in secret. A conspiracy theory is a theory that some people collude in secret. Conspiracy theories are true when they correspond to true conspiracies.
      - Gigachad 4y ago
        People get the idea that theory means wrong or imaginary when it really means the concept of something rather than the actual thing. But the concept can be correct and fully proven like the theory of math or physics.
rahimnathwani 4y ago
This is mentioned in the first line of the article: "you should instead buy a different purifier that totally coincidentally happens to pay affiliate marketing commissions."
- clairity 4y ago
  i literally ran into this with wirecutter when searching for an air purifier years ago. they recommended an inferior performing coway when their own tests concluded that blueair (211+) was significantly better. they've long since removed the chart showing this discrepancy, and they still recommend coway, no doubt because that's their affiliate partner. i bought the 211+ and have been mostly satisfied with it for my studio apartment, but beware, filters are relatively expensive. in any case, if you really care about effective air purification, buy the largest/most powerful fan you can get (CADR tries to proxy this, but is an imperfect measure), because the critical factor is getting as much of the air volume through the filters before the dust settles (literally). filter effectiveness isn't nearly as critical as throughput. nowadays i'd probably opt for two of the ikeas instead, and put them on opposite sides of the room (but not against a wall). that'd be cheaper and likely just as effective.
sumeno 4y ago
There are other categories where they do recommend IKEA as the top option despite not getting a commission
arkitaip 4y ago
You know what the messed up thing about Wirecutter's affiliate marketing is? Their Amazon links are consistently broken to the point where the links don't point to products but are faulty search queries. Like, if you are going to compromise your reputation doing affiliate marketing, at least get the damn links right so I don't have to perform a Amazon search to find the actual product.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Some might say this is intentional, the whole point for the link is to corrupt your Amazon cookie so that they get credit for the (next?) purchase you make. At least that's how I've always assumed the links work, not that you have to buy the exact product immediately.
  - hackernewds 4y ago
    This blew my mind. And would be highly unethical that Amazon should know, since the accounting often happens on the publisher's side
    - bombcar 4y ago
      https://toolguyd.com/top-tool-deals-11122020/ https://toolguyd.com/top-tool-deals-11122020/ has some comments on what the site owner can see, things like which links work better than others, etc. Surprisingly large amounts of info could leak without anyone really realizing it, even if everything is entirely "anonymized" there's still the total dollar amount paid out, etc.
    - harrisonjackson 4y ago
      The product link not resolving doesn't improve this payout for the publisher. The cookie gets dropped _either way_ and when a purchase happen Amazon will check for a referral cookie and payout accordingly for whatever qualifies in that cart. As long as you end up on amazon's site, then the cookie was likely dropped and your next purchase may pay out affiliate commission to whichever publisher's links you most recently clicked through.
asojfdowgh 4y ago
They recommend against a bunch of things even if they get commission
stjohnswarts 4y ago
Do you have proof of that? Otherwise it kind of is conspiracy theorist. I assume Hanlon's razor here rather than malice on the part of NYT/WC.
dchest 4y ago
I thought the same, but IKEA does have an affiliate program.

Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but the IKEA one which they singled out as not recommended to buy is the only one in the article they don't earn a commission on when someone buys it

elromulous 4y ago

This is definitely not a conspiracy theory. Incentives affect reviews, which is why truly unbiased review sources exist.

Nextgrid 4y ago
Especially when they already have a proven track record of nastiness: https://www.xdesk.com/wirecutter-standing-desk-review-pay-to-play-model https://www.xdesk.com/wirecutter-standing-desk-review-pay-to...
- GavinMcG 4y ago
  I've used the Wirecutter, so I'm not going to claim to be totally unbiased. But I'm just not seeing any nastiness there: the reason they gave for switching their recommendation (while retaining their original recommendation as an upgrade pick) seems entirely legitimate. And as much as the company wants to emphasize the use of the word "kickback" it's not really apt: Wirecutter's model has always been affiliate linking, and that's exactly what they reached out about in their first and second emails. And when turned down, they still published the recommendation and (later) still identified it as the best option if cost isn't an issue.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    But the problem is that it ultimately skews the incentives and contradicts their claim that the editors are totally isolated from the commercial part of their business. Their homepage currently suggests the following: > We independently review everything we recommend. When you buy through our links, we may earn a commission [emphasis mine] The "about" page claims: > There’s no incentive for us to pick inferior products or to respond to pressure from manufacturers—in fact, it’s quite the opposite [emphasis mine] That's not really true when the same person who writes the reviews is the one trying to solicit kickbacks in the background, and puts the credibility of the entire website into question. Their adjusted review could be completely legitimate but there's no way to be sure so it's better to err on the side of caution.
    - GavinMcG 4y ago
      Sure, and I'm not saying there's no possible influence in any direction. At the same time, I suspect things are more separate than in 2014, and I don't see that claim on their pages from back then [0][1]. In fact they seemed to have independently reviewed the desks and only then asked about an affiliate program. When they switched their recommendation to Fully, they apparently didn't have an affiliate relationship with them, either. NextDesk calls that "false" — but based on Wirecutter linking to Amazon to earn a commission. That's a bizarre conflation (although like you said it's not nothing) but it's what Wirecutter usually did regardless of the product, and they were up front about it at the time [1]. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20150603092537/https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-standing-desk/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150603092537/https://thewirecu... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20150518125823/http://thewirecutter.com/how-to-support-the-wirecutter/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150518125823/http://thewirecut... (Wirecutter used the word "kickback" here, too, so if anything it seems like they were trying to be as uncharitable as possible about their own model.)
      - lozenge 4y ago
        Wirecutter's "business team" won't let their "editorial team" review the new iterations of the NextDesk product because if their "unbiased recommendation" is NextDesk, revenue will go down. The CEO was explicit in his email that he looks to maximise revenue on the standing desks page (and by implication, every other page on the site). The "business team" was explicit - the editorial team doesn't act directly, they can only get review units arranged by the business team - which is refusing to receive review units because no affiliate program is in place.
        GavinMcG 4y ago
        Eight years ago, right? Are they refusing now? (Genuinely curious if you've got up-to-date info. If they are terribly biased I want to know it, so I can downgrade my trust, which is why I upvoted the OP about the air purifier.) Also, it's not really clear to me that "independently review" has to mean "we completely isolate any business-related decision-making from editorial functions" as Nextgrid seems to assume.
- elromulous 4y ago
  Oh wow! I hadn't seen this. Thanks for sharing.
hammock 4y ago
Sometimes conspiracy theories are true. They are still conspiracy theories
- CharlesW 4y ago
  “A conspiracy theory is not the same as a conspiracy; instead, it refers to a hypothesized conspiracy…” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Exactly, if they're true it's a conspiracy fact or just a conspiracy. And even if they do NOT take kickbacks, there's no financial incentive at all to "link" to a sales page that doesn't offer affiliate links, where there is one to link. And so the best way to handle this is to not review at all products that aren't available through said sites. Think Southwest tickets not being available from aggregators.
    - CharlesW 4y ago
      > And even if they do NOT take kickbacks, there's no financial incentive at all to "link" to a sales page that doesn't offer affiliate links… And yet Wirecutter does this. https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-stuff-from-ikea/ https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-stuff-from-i...
  - jstanley 4y ago
    A conspiracy is when people collude in secret. A conspiracy theory is a theory that some people collude in secret. Conspiracy theories are true when they correspond to true conspiracies.
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      People get the idea that theory means wrong or imaginary when it really means the concept of something rather than the actual thing. But the concept can be correct and fully proven like the theory of math or physics.

rahimnathwani 4y ago

This is mentioned in the first line of the article: "you should instead buy a different purifier that totally coincidentally happens to pay affiliate marketing commissions."

clairity 4y ago
i literally ran into this with wirecutter when searching for an air purifier years ago. they recommended an inferior performing coway when their own tests concluded that blueair (211+) was significantly better. they've long since removed the chart showing this discrepancy, and they still recommend coway, no doubt because that's their affiliate partner. i bought the 211+ and have been mostly satisfied with it for my studio apartment, but beware, filters are relatively expensive. in any case, if you really care about effective air purification, buy the largest/most powerful fan you can get (CADR tries to proxy this, but is an imperfect measure), because the critical factor is getting as much of the air volume through the filters before the dust settles (literally). filter effectiveness isn't nearly as critical as throughput. nowadays i'd probably opt for two of the ikeas instead, and put them on opposite sides of the room (but not against a wall). that'd be cheaper and likely just as effective.

sumeno 4y ago

There are other categories where they do recommend IKEA as the top option despite not getting a commission

arkitaip 4y ago

You know what the messed up thing about Wirecutter's affiliate marketing is? Their Amazon links are consistently broken to the point where the links don't point to products but are faulty search queries. Like, if you are going to compromise your reputation doing affiliate marketing, at least get the damn links right so I don't have to perform a Amazon search to find the actual product.

bombcar 4y ago
Some might say this is intentional, the whole point for the link is to corrupt your Amazon cookie so that they get credit for the (next?) purchase you make. At least that's how I've always assumed the links work, not that you have to buy the exact product immediately.
- hackernewds 4y ago
  This blew my mind. And would be highly unethical that Amazon should know, since the accounting often happens on the publisher's side
  - bombcar 4y ago
    https://toolguyd.com/top-tool-deals-11122020/ https://toolguyd.com/top-tool-deals-11122020/ has some comments on what the site owner can see, things like which links work better than others, etc. Surprisingly large amounts of info could leak without anyone really realizing it, even if everything is entirely "anonymized" there's still the total dollar amount paid out, etc.
  - harrisonjackson 4y ago
    The product link not resolving doesn't improve this payout for the publisher. The cookie gets dropped _either way_ and when a purchase happen Amazon will check for a referral cookie and payout accordingly for whatever qualifies in that cart. As long as you end up on amazon's site, then the cookie was likely dropped and your next purchase may pay out affiliate commission to whichever publisher's links you most recently clicked through.

asojfdowgh 4y ago

They recommend against a bunch of things even if they get commission

stjohnswarts 4y ago

Do you have proof of that? Otherwise it kind of is conspiracy theorist. I assume Hanlon's razor here rather than malice on the part of NYT/WC.

dchest 4y ago

I thought the same, but IKEA does have an affiliate program.