Why Some Wirecutter Picks Have Bad Amazon Reviews | Hacker News Reader

Why Some Wirecutter Picks Have Bad Amazon Reviews

nytimes.com

I thought a big part of it was simply that many Wirecutter picks aren't very good. They are great for areas you aren't knowledgeable enough to assess on your own (and where it would be prohibitive to learn), or where you just need something that's not total junk.

But "not total junk" is a pretty low bar to clear, and that illustrates the fundamental problem of the Wirecutter: it's never going to be for the professionals, the ones who use objects day after day, long enough to form real opinions. Anyone who knows their field will always laugh at the Wirecutter's recommendations, if not the what then certainly the why.

Doesn't the Wirecutter use domain experts for their reviews? I don't see any intrinsic reason why the reviews would have to be laughable.

I've had at least one case of "oh no not that guy again" when reading their reviews. In this case it was a guy I'd seen in magazines ten years earlier, and I didn't like his work then either. He's never the end user, he's a professional journalist "specializing" in that field.

The NYT has put Wirecutter behind a paywall, and they're mounting a big campaign to push it as some kind of ultimate review authority. It's not. As ever, if you're looking for internet reviews, it pays to check out multiple sites, especially sites that specialize in the kind of product you're looking for. And you shouldn't have to pay for it.

Perfect illustration of the kinds of negative nancy comments that the article explains are a big part of negative reviews

If it's wrong to be right, I don't wanna be wrong. Right?

It’s much worse than you are describing: NYT put wirecutter behind a two layer paywall.

They no longer let regular NYT subscribers from accessing Wirecutter, one has to buy an extra subscription (I assume almost everyone buying this will also pay for basic NYT access so it is effectively a two layer pay wall)

https://www.nytimes.com/subscription/wirecutter

This is part of NYT plan to divide their content into different groups and charge a subscription for each.

I am not sure if this strategy is smart or not, but my gut feeling is that it is a horrible strategy, and could hurt customer retention rates.

They did the same with the crosswords and other puzzles.

It sounds like they're following the Consumer Reports "it's better because you're paying for it" business model. I don't know if we need two of those though.

A good workaround for this is to search for the Wirecutter article you’re interested in via Google and then select the cached version of the page — that will show you the full content, no paywall.

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