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Comment by et-al | Hacker News Reader

The Wirecutter worked because a reader could understand that its source of income was affiliate links for quality consumer goods. And we trusted that it'd be critical and honest.

On the other hand, a media company that relies on advertising for a significant chunk of its revenue naturally seems like it will have a conflict of interest between its advertisers and the products it may be reviewing.

Anyways, congrats to Brian Lam and co., but I'm curious how this would benefit the Times in the long run.

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It's definitely concerning, but doesn't an affiliate link business model also have potential conflicts of interest? There's a direct financial incentive to recommend products from sellers with more generous referral programs, as well as a bias toward more expensive products (assuming the kickback is percentage based).

Hopefully the NYT is smart enough to realize that all the value is in the reputation and maintain an open and transparent hands-off editorial policy. Keeping the articles as detailed and comprehensive as they are is also important, but still leaves room for advertiser pressure through omission of viable alternatives while retaining the appearance of objectivity.

I'm curious about this as well. Hopefully NYT realizes that the property can help the company build trust with consumers and focuses on that value, rather than the dollars that can be squeezed from it.

Does the NY Times have a history of usurping acquisitions and milking them for money? This is a company who leans on its reputation a great deal, so I would think that they would recognize its value. But like you say, money will talk.

The majority of links are to Amazon's product listing. Sometimes with alternate links (I've seen Jet.com and Homedepot.com type links). All reliable web stores.

You're right that its percentage based, so there may be a slight bias toward higher priced items, but I haven't seen it. I bought a recommended non-stick pan off thesweethome yesterday, and they explicitly talk about price range being good to go a bit cheaper and just buy a new one more often, rather than a more expensive one (to minimize the effects of wear that hit even expensive ones). So they recommend a cheaper pan than they could have.

Yes, that's the point I was trying to make. They've cultivated a reputation for independence, despite possible conflicts of interest, but that's more difficult to maintain when your customer base knows you are exposed to advertiser pressure. Hopefully they can pull it off.

The difference of a fixed percentage on a variable cost is very minor. If you're recommending a $100 monitor with a 4% affiliate fee, that's $4. A $150 monitor is $6. Making good recommendations (i.e. stuff people want to buy) will easily outweigh the payment difference.

Still, it's important to have a policy about it and be transparent - which Wirecutter (and the NYTimes surely) has.

That's one way to look at it. Another is that, when affiliate fees are your only source of revenue, replacing all your $4 fees with $6 fees increases revenue by 50%. That's potentially huge. If you're running the company, you have to take it on faith that keeping your integrity will continue to improve word-of-mouth sales by more than 50% over the long run. And there's a constant temptation to change your mind, especially if your growth curve starts to taper off.

I'm just saying the math isn't so cut-and-dry that we consumers don't have to remain vigilant.

Yes you will notice that the related site thesweethome rarely includes Ikea products or any other company that does not have a lucrative affiliate program in the comparison.

I don't think this is true. Ikea is often included in Sweethome comparisons for which Ikea has products, but the overlap between what Ikea sells (mostly furniture) and the Sweethome reviews (lots of tools, small appliances, kitchen electronics, etc.) is not that great. But Ikea products seem to have been included in all the reviews related to mattresses or bedding, flatware, dishes, pots and pans, etc.: http://thesweethome.com/?s=ikea

I purchased the top bluetooth headphones reviewed on Wirecutter, and they were so preposterously bad that my only possible conclusion was that the reviews weren't objective. My friend had the same experience with same headphones (JLab Epic).

Serious Eats has to structure its reviews differently to avoid offending advertisers. It insists that its product recommendations are independent of outside influence, but it avoids discussing its non-recommendations, which makes some articles much less valuable to the reader. That's probably the least bad way for advertising to influence reviews, but it's unfortunate even so.

As long as they don't change their format I'm ok with this. They seem to go to a great deal of trouble to discuss all the possible options, and criteria they used to write their recommendations. That allows me to judge for myself to a degree which I really like. Several times I have not bought their recommendation and have gone with something else because I felt like I was more informed about what I was looking for from reading their article, which is still good in my book.

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