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I added Ars Technica to my feed since I've always enjoyed their more in-depth pieces and civil liberties beat. Ended up dropping The Verge after I'd see them bo

I added Ars Technica to my feed since I've always enjoyed their more in-depth pieces and civil liberties beat. Ended up dropping The Verge after I'd see them both cover the exactly same general tech stories I cared about, and Ars without the Spotify playlist and Marvel Universe posts. Says something about Ars' business model, that a hoary old site seems to sustain itself with some throwback non-native ads and subscriptions, while the Huffington Posts of tech journalism have to sustain growth beyond their audience and crisp initial point of view, into something mushy and barely palatable.

rob_lh 11y ago
I've done the exact same thing for the exact same reasons. Hurray for social validation.
snowwrestler 11y ago
I've only been involved in one story that was widely covered by the tech press. ArsTechnica's coverage was far and away the most accurate. I've preferred them as a news source ever since. They might not be the flashiest, highest-profile tech news site, but maybe that is part of their advantage--less clickbait and more actual reporting. Their coverage of modern password cracking was also top-notch and, with the "correct horse battery staple" XKCD, changed the way a lot of people think about strong passwords.
lambdaelite 11y ago
Ars seems to be the least objectionable of the available tech website choices, but I worry that their decline is just happening at a slower rate. For IT, civil liberties, and biomedical/physical sciences (I would argue their original areas of expertise), they're as good as ever. As soon as they start branching out from those areas, quality as I perceive it takes a nosedive. Take their "Cars Technica" automotive venture as an example. It should be a fertile topic area, but the execution at Ars has been a disaster: look at their Porsche Macan article [0] (an especially bad one) or their Audi A8 article [1]. If you're brave enough to read the comments on either, you'll find plenty of dissatisfied readers and a staff deaf to the complaints—if that is representative of the site as a whole, I see a decline across the site as inevitable. I would like to be very wrong. [0]: http://arstechnica.com/cars/2014/07/a-day-in-the-new-porsche-macan-an-suv-that-wants-to-race/ http://arstechnica.com/cars/2014/07/a-day-in-the-new-porsche... [1]: http://arstechnica.com/cars/2014/07/hands-on-with-audis-flagships-the-technology-packed-a8-and-s8/ http://arstechnica.com/cars/2014/07/hands-on-with-audis-flag...
- jkestner 11y ago
  I don't get the car reviews on tech sites. Clearly they're not "all things automotive" - it seems to be mostly Tesla, tech implications and these sporadic reviews of nice cars that make me wonder if they're really marketing.

rob_lh 11y ago

I've done the exact same thing for the exact same reasons. Hurray for social validation.

snowwrestler 11y ago

I've only been involved in one story that was widely covered by the tech press. ArsTechnica's coverage was far and away the most accurate. I've preferred them as a news source ever since. They might not be the flashiest, highest-profile tech news site, but maybe that is part of their advantage--less clickbait and more actual reporting. Their coverage of modern password cracking was also top-notch and, with the "correct horse battery staple" XKCD, changed the way a lot of people think about strong passwords.

lambdaelite 11y ago

Ars seems to be the least objectionable of the available tech website choices, but I worry that their decline is just happening at a slower rate. For IT, civil liberties, and biomedical/physical sciences (I would argue their original areas of expertise), they're as good as ever. As soon as they start branching out from those areas, quality as I perceive it takes a nosedive. Take their "Cars Technica" automotive venture as an example. It should be a fertile topic area, but the execution at Ars has been a disaster: look at their Porsche Macan article [0] (an especially bad one) or their Audi A8 article [1]. If you're brave enough to read the comments on either, you'll find plenty of dissatisfied readers and a staff deaf to the complaints—if that is representative of the site as a whole, I see a decline across the site as inevitable. I would like to be very wrong. [0]: http://arstechnica.com/cars/2014/07/a-day-in-the-new-porsche-macan-an-suv-that-wants-to-race/ http://arstechnica.com/cars/2014/07/a-day-in-the-new-porsche... [1]: http://arstechnica.com/cars/2014/07/hands-on-with-audis-flagships-the-technology-packed-a8-and-s8/ http://arstechnica.com/cars/2014/07/hands-on-with-audis-flag...

jkestner 11y ago
I don't get the car reviews on tech sites. Clearly they're not "all things automotive" - it seems to be mostly Tesla, tech implications and these sporadic reviews of nice cars that make me wonder if they're really marketing.