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Shopping without researching goes hand in hand with a fool and his money. For the typical consumer, visiting consumerreports.com and picking one of their top re

by 1970-01-01 2y ago

Shopping without researching goes hand in hand with a fool and his money. For the typical consumer, visiting consumerreports.com and picking one of their top recommendations would solve a majority of these problems.

markus_zhang 2y ago
The thing is, how do you know which research is good or not? Is trusting a website good enough? I really doubt. BTW I do agree that we need to do some research beforehand, but with a lot of products it's difficult or impossible.
- 1970-01-01 2y ago
  The same way it's always been known: brand reputation and personal experience. Good examples are NFTs and cryptocoins. They have earned their online reputations as jokes and exotic investments. If I offered you a job that paid in NFTs and bonuses in spicecoins, you would be a complete fool to accept it.
thrance 2y ago
Fools aren't the only one buying without research, else advertising and marketing wouldn't exisit. The average consumer's inability to fairly compare products is key in the current economy.
bombcar 2y ago
How different does that work out from just taking the first few results in the storefront or from a generic product search? The problem is the esoteric domain knowledge that things like consumerreports doesn't catch - for example, the way they rank cars has lots to do with minor problems detected after buying a new one, but most people just want to know "if I buy this, will it just work without thought for ten years" and that's much harder to know without waiting ten years. And with things like toilets you may get them ranked based on how well they flush golf balls (even though nobody shits golfballs, if you do you have other problems). And plumbers might rank them on installability, ease of repair, etc, when all you want is one that works and keeps working and doesn't ever back up. https://terrylove.com/crtoilet.htm https://terrylove.com/crtoilet.htm has to be read with an eye to that. The main thing that review searching and research can find is things to avoid - it's much harder to have it find things you should seek out.

markus_zhang 2y ago

The thing is, how do you know which research is good or not? Is trusting a website good enough? I really doubt. BTW I do agree that we need to do some research beforehand, but with a lot of products it's difficult or impossible.

1970-01-01 2y ago
The same way it's always been known: brand reputation and personal experience. Good examples are NFTs and cryptocoins. They have earned their online reputations as jokes and exotic investments. If I offered you a job that paid in NFTs and bonuses in spicecoins, you would be a complete fool to accept it.

thrance 2y ago

Fools aren't the only one buying without research, else advertising and marketing wouldn't exisit. The average consumer's inability to fairly compare products is key in the current economy.

bombcar 2y ago

How different does that work out from just taking the first few results in the storefront or from a generic product search? The problem is the esoteric domain knowledge that things like consumerreports doesn't catch - for example, the way they rank cars has lots to do with minor problems detected after buying a new one, but most people just want to know "if I buy this, will it just work without thought for ten years" and that's much harder to know without waiting ten years. And with things like toilets you may get them ranked based on how well they flush golf balls (even though nobody shits golfballs, if you do you have other problems). And plumbers might rank them on installability, ease of repair, etc, when all you want is one that works and keeps working and doesn't ever back up. https://terrylove.com/crtoilet.htm https://terrylove.com/crtoilet.htm has to be read with an eye to that. The main thing that review searching and research can find is things to avoid - it's much harder to have it find things you should seek out.