3 ms·

It's very much an information problem. One needs a company that can go do all the research and tell their readers what stuff is well made and good quality. Thi

It's very much an information problem. One needs a company that can go do all the research and tell their readers what stuff is well made and good quality. Things like Consumer Reports and Which are supposed to full this niche but they only assess big brands (and are probably under used by people).

ginko 2y ago
>It's very much an information problem. One needs a company that can go do all the research and tell their readers what stuff is well made and good quality. This role used to be filled by reputable stores.
- card_zero 2y ago
  Curating stuff means: You aren't offering most of the things people can imagine, You aren't offering all the latest trendy stuff, important in the moment, You're paying people to check the quality of your limited range of dusty goods. (Wikipedia has solved this problem by having an army of 120,000 active and mostly conscientious volunteer editors, but that's some kind of magic trick or luck that cannot be deliberately copied into other domains.)
- ghaff 2y ago
  Small business stores mostly had lousy selection and wanted to sell you what they had in stock for the most part. Yes, you had some niche labor of love businesses, but those were the minority. Information used to be really hard to come by outside of a few sources like Consumer Reports.
TeMPOraL 2y ago
Doesn't help you at all when the company waits until the review is done (possibly speeding it up by soliciting independent reviews early), and then swaps out the components and manufacturing process for cheaper, worse one, without changing the product name and the SKU. Big brands have already been caught red-handed doing it; most recent big story I recall was about hard drives.
- moffkalast 2y ago
  Or the automotive way, giving reviewers a full vacation in Tahiti with all things included that happens to include a test drive of their new car somewhere, making sure they're ahem all relaxed so they can give a completely fair and unbiased review.
- izacus 2y ago
  This also assumes that there is actual competition to be compared, but corporations are surprisingly bandwagony. E.g. look at phone, car, TV or any other similar markets and just how homogenous they became. Heck, my mobile phone reviewers are outright quitting because that whole billion $ market is pretty much stagnant.
andrepd 2y ago
They would be a much more critical and well-functioning part of the economy (performing vital information-discovery and dissemination functions) if advertising was banned or at least severely curtailed.

ginko 2y ago

>It's very much an information problem. One needs a company that can go do all the research and tell their readers what stuff is well made and good quality. This role used to be filled by reputable stores.

card_zero 2y ago
Curating stuff means: You aren't offering most of the things people can imagine, You aren't offering all the latest trendy stuff, important in the moment, You're paying people to check the quality of your limited range of dusty goods. (Wikipedia has solved this problem by having an army of 120,000 active and mostly conscientious volunteer editors, but that's some kind of magic trick or luck that cannot be deliberately copied into other domains.)
ghaff 2y ago
Small business stores mostly had lousy selection and wanted to sell you what they had in stock for the most part. Yes, you had some niche labor of love businesses, but those were the minority. Information used to be really hard to come by outside of a few sources like Consumer Reports.

TeMPOraL 2y ago

Doesn't help you at all when the company waits until the review is done (possibly speeding it up by soliciting independent reviews early), and then swaps out the components and manufacturing process for cheaper, worse one, without changing the product name and the SKU. Big brands have already been caught red-handed doing it; most recent big story I recall was about hard drives.

moffkalast 2y ago
Or the automotive way, giving reviewers a full vacation in Tahiti with all things included that happens to include a test drive of their new car somewhere, making sure they're ahem all relaxed so they can give a completely fair and unbiased review.
izacus 2y ago
This also assumes that there is actual competition to be compared, but corporations are surprisingly bandwagony. E.g. look at phone, car, TV or any other similar markets and just how homogenous they became. Heck, my mobile phone reviewers are outright quitting because that whole billion $ market is pretty much stagnant.

andrepd 2y ago

They would be a much more critical and well-functioning part of the economy (performing vital information-discovery and dissemination functions) if advertising was banned or at least severely curtailed.