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Comment by vgel | Hacker News Reader

A lot of the reasons for decline cited in the article feel fluffy. "The best washer/dryer depends on who you are"? The Wirecutter always gave alternatives and "upgrade picks". "People prefer influencers"? Are there washer/dryer and toaster influencers now?

What killed the Wirecutter for me was the standing desk referral code scandal, full stop. Their whole thing was "one stop for the best thing", and if there's any hint of bias there, it kills that. I believe that was after the NYT acquisition--I think it's very fair to lay the blame at their feet.

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> What killed the Wirecutter for me was the standing desk referral code scandal, full stop

They responded and pointed out that Nextdesk was wrong, but if you've ever worked for any journal or know someone who has, they will all tell you that the reputable ones, like NYT, have a complete separation between income and reporting. Literally the only common link between them is the CEO.

I don't know the truth of the matter, since there's no elaboration or confirmation, but the article also says:

> A former staffer alleged that in 2019, an employee on the Times business side changed the copy of a post in the Money vertical without telling the editorial team—a major ethical breach in an industry where the separation of Church and state, so to speak, is sacrosanct.

But note that it also says said employee was sacked because of it.

Here is that response from the Times. I find it pretty convincing. https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/our-response-to-nextdesk/

> Are there washer/dryer and toaster influencers now?

Possibly. It might depend on your definition of 'influencer', too.

Vacuum Wars[1] seems to do pretty comprehensive reviews of vacuums.

Watching Project Farm[2] is also interesting, although it's often bulk testing a whole lot of one type of product at once, and is very fast paced.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/@VacuumWars [2] https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectFarm

Project farm is great never been disappointed with his reviews

Reviews?

Feels like it is just, here, tested it once for 2 mins doing one or maybe two things. At best it gives you an idea of what to avoid but I've never come out of one of those videos knowing what I'd actually want.

It also feels like the videos could be a courter in length if they just included a table with product data.

While the reviews can sometimes be superficial, there’s also often cases with a clear winner, or a winner without paying 3x the price. I ended up following his recommendation on automotive scratch remover compound, for example, and was happy with the results.

They do include that I always skip to the summary at the end then back track to any tests I care about

My confidence was recently shook by their garden hose review. I own of the highly rated hoses that he says had zero kinks. Mine kinks 100% of the time. Multiple times in one session.

What I like about Project Farm is he often doesn’t make an absolute recommendation. The way he tests is really useful in identifying the products NOT to buy based on specific use cases.

What, this? https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/our-response-to-nextdesk/

Archive link to nextdesks linked in that post: https://web.archive.org/web/20171116141107/http://www.nextde...

> Are there washer/dryer and toaster influencers now?

Oh yes. I spend too much time on the social medias and am also a middle-aged white lady, so I'm in the demographic that gets pushed a bunch of domestic and parenting content despite my lack of home and children.

The washer/dryer guys are usually either appliance salesmen or appliance repairmen, and the toaster/small kitchen appliance people are usually momfluencers.

They’re out of date now but John Siracusa’s toaster reviews on the ATP podcast were amazing content.

For those paying attention, this is the NYT model. It is not dissimilar from Forbes, though typically more subtle. Similar to Politico.

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