Comment by ruph123 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ruph123 | Hacker News Reader

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As a German I and many others are religiously following what our consumer reports "Stiftung Warentest" recommends (except for high-tech products). Germans have very high confidence in the products and many companies print a good test result ("very good" or even "good" on their packaging). Reasons are that they are extremely thorough, unbiased, financially independent and can be quite tough. They have sophisticated testing facilities, do lab tests, test lifetime of products with machines, etc. And they have been sued several times by companies. So when I cam to the US I was very worried of the basically unregulated companies to screw me over so naturally I (digitally) subscribed to the OG Consumer Reports (which historically seems to be the role model of all other international consumer reports). However I am so disappointed about the magazine:

- it is not very thorough or strict (rather leniant)

- it has a really poor selection of product categories

- besides a table of comparing the products features it has very little editorial buying guides that go more into detail.

In the case of the German magazine, when you read through some of the guides they can be quite entertaining, they slap the wrists of even the most powerful (german) companies if something breaks or if they falsely advertise features, or if there are critical design flaws in the product. I really wish CR would be as critical.

Stiftung Warentest is definitely useful, but like you said have a spotty track-record for tech products. Realising that definitely made me more sceptical of them. It's basically the concept of "Gell-Mann Amnesia" - if I can tell their tests are flawed in a field I'm knowledgable in, are the tests they do in other fields that seem reasonable to me also flawed (but I ignore that)?

Although they do come up with the testing protocol, I'm pretty sure they don't do the testing themselves, and contract it out to specialist labs/testing companies (not a bad thing).

In general though, I agree it's easier to trust them, being an independent foundation, and getting no commission. Wirecutter got acquired in 2016, too.

I've also found it hard to get that German experience in other places. At the core, it's just down to how much/how many people care about something like quality. I think the (German) federal regulations and Stiftung Warentest are a result of this culture, but also make it easier to care about quality. It's a nice feedback cycle. The internet can substitute, but it's much more effort.

True. I think there are categories where I take their word for gospel, like electric tooth brushes, mixers and other electric household items, food, cosmetics, etc.

But for some products they had/have really weird metrics. E.g. an early smartphone would be punished because the battery was not replaceable, so a shitty feature phone took the crone (a little exaggerated). But still, they are focused on customers.

And a lot of the non-test editorial focuses on updating the consumer about warnings of faulty products, new regulations, test candidate updates, etc.

The good thing is, that the composition of the end score is also published. This way you have a standardized comparision of the different features/properties and you can give an other weight to the categories for yourself.

Anyone interested in a comparable organisation in their country might like to read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Consumer_Researc...

Obviously I can't vouch for the reliability of these organisations, but it may provide a starting point.

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