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> makes me wonder why folks trust the current corrupt review system, of which streamers are now part of too. Agreed. There's such a whole world of unreported '
by FireBeyond 3y ago
> makes me wonder why folks trust the current corrupt review system, of which streamers are now part of too.
Agreed. There's such a whole world of unreported 'sponsored' or otherwise products, and streaming is a big part of it. And no-one is immune.
When the cheesegrater Mac Pro came out, I watched a lot of videos on it, particularly on YouTube in the photo/video segment - I was planning to get one, and while I had other uses for it, I'd be doing a lot of photo work on it in my recreational time.
Quickly I noticed just how many of the big name streamers had launch day or very early access to the Mac Pro and Pro Display. Sure.
And then I noticed how each and every one spun it as "I just got mine", "just bought one", and so forth. All organic, they'd have you believe - not a single one said "Apple sent me this". And yet...
By "a curious coincidence", every single one had seemingly ordered the exact same spec: an 18 core CPU, 384GB of memory, the Vega II Duo GPU, and 8TB SSD, and the nano-textured ProDisplay.
So what, you might think, that might have been the quickest shipping order. Also an $18,000+ computer, $25K with the display.
And if you're a photographer, even if you're working on medium format digital, and 100MP images, you in no way shape or form need 384GB of memory, or that GPU. For me, LightRoom / Capture One and Photoshop all barely sweated on my 12 core 192GB W5700X variant.
So then Occam's Razor applies. What are the odds that, even of just the 8-10 streamers I watch, they all got exactly the same spec Mac? Or is it that that was the spec Apple was sending to high popularity streamers?
Except not a single one even implied that that might have been the case. And I don't doubt that many or all bought their own at some point. But I suspect it was mostly "got one from Apple, talked it up, and then substituted it with my own when it arrived".
- zf00002 3y agoI've been getting into sim racing lately and a majority of the youtube reviewers do this thing where they claim it's not a sponsored video but the company sent them the product for free. And that's the same problem when it was magazines publishing glowing reviews of mediocre products just so the gravy train of free stuff doesn't end.
- FireBeyond 3y agoThose would be somewhat better if they made a point (I've seen some in the photography world do it with smaller things) of "and after I go through a review, I'm going to give it away to a viewer/follower..."
- throw3823423 3y agoAnd it gets worse the smaller the market is: There is a chance that a youtuber with sufficiently large following could actually choose to buy said mac pro, because their revenue might be pretty large. But then you look at, say, boardgame reviews. Nobody, ever, buys a game. But the number of views isn't good enough to dedicate the time to it as anything other than a hobby. Thus, anyone posting enough that they make it their job is also getting sponsored on top of the free product, but nobody wants to tell you that. Thus, all you are seeing is 100% ad, just shaped as a review, or as entertainment.
- DonHopkins 3y agoHey, it worked for Jerry Pournelle and Robert Scoble ...