If you want to solve the problem of product research in an old-school way, Consumer Reports still exists. Their business model for almost a century has been to produce independent reviews of products, and charge for the reviews. It is also run as a non-profit. I'm honestly surprised how little I hear about them. Not that any organization is perfect, but they have been the poster child of success via paid content since the 1930s.
It also makes me think that part of the problem is not only that Google's results are getting worse, it is that much of the population goes to the internet for all problems. Whether it is googling or asking on social media... the "front-line" information on the internet is simply not reliable anymore.
Sorry I have to weigh in here and say that Consumer Reports is a pay-to-play service now, where often the worst products & services are not the best, and often times criminally bad.
As an example, I used them for moving services for a state-to-state move. Turns out the top three or four moving services are merely dispatchers run by a single company, run by a convicted felon out of Florida under a rotating number of businesses and cutouts.
When I contacted Consumer Reports to let them know about the many tens of thousands of complaints about the companies they were ranking highest, they referred me to their attorney.
>> If you want to solve the problem of product research in an old-school way, Consumer Reports still exists. Their business model for almost a century has been to produce independent reviews of products, and charge for the reviews. It is also run as a non-profit.
> Sorry I have to weigh in here and say that Consumer Reports is a pay-to-play service now, where often the worst products & services are not the best, and often times criminally bad.
> As an example, I used them for moving services for a state-to-state move. Turns out the top three or four moving services are merely dispatchers run by a single company, run by a convicted felon out of Florida under a rotating number of businesses and cutouts.
Honestly, "moving companies" is not a category that seems like it would be in Consumer Reports' wheelhouse, and I'm surprised they offered any recommendations in that area at all.
Also, your anecdote doesn't really support the notion that they're "pay-to-play, just that they did a bad job in some category.
Are you actually thinking of the Better Business Bureau but got it mixed up with Consumer reports? I would expect the BBB to rate moving services and I've heard that they have some kind of membership program for businesses that seems to allow better control over complaints, which is pretty close to "pay-to-play."
This is all a massive deflection. Why is CR okay to make recommendations in an "area they're not good at"? Even the most generous interpretations are more damning than your claims.
I think OP was asking whether they were confusing CR for the Better Business Bureau because moving services does not seem to be something CR would review
I don't see any evidence of this. The most likely scenario is the original complaint confused BBB (totally pay-to-play, scam) with CR.
CR doesn't review this category and a search of past CR review categories doesn't yield moving services. In general, they don't review anything regional.
Because thats a service not a product. I go to CR for reviews on what the best mattress is, moving companies is not something I would go to them for so that doesn't concern me. Its like saying AAA isn't worth the money because you didn't like the hotel they gave you a discount on.
Right except AAA's service is not providing opinions on the quality of anything, goods or services. Lying about the quality of a good or service when that is your business, potentially with kickbacks, is not really a defensible position. "It's okay because I don't expect their opinion to be good in this one area" doesn't negate CR providing that opinion.
No one can find anything where Consumer Reports has rated moving services. It's likely the grandparent confused them with BBB, which is totally pay-to-play.
And--- I appreciate Consumer Reports' accuracy, but I doubt that they are 100% accurate. There are probably recommendation sets that end up as garbage for one reason or another (incorrect weighting for my use case, statistical noise, evolution in products since survey experiences, etc).
There's also times where I have personal expertise or preferences that outweigh CR's rankings. CR rates computers, after all, and I would probably not weigh them very heavily in my choice.
As a long time CR subscriber, agree absolutely. This stuff is hard and clean data sets are nonexistent. I still recommend to my friends to subscribe to CR as independent reviews are important (and worth paying for).
In all the years I've used Consumer Reports I've never seen them rate moving services. I just jumped on their site now, and there are no reviews for moving services.
I'm not sure if Consumer Reports has ever formally reviewed moving services, though I admit I haven't been looking for this category specifically. CR's website currently doesn't have any reviews for moving services, not even with a disclaimer that the category is no longer being tested (like they do for some categories, such as steam irons: https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/steam-irons.htm).
CR's freelance writers have written general advice articles on moving services, like https://www.consumerreports.org/moving/how-to-choose-a-relia..., which might be useful to some readers but certainly aren't very deep. These articles aren't the same as CR's actual reviews, which have scores and detailed ratings for each product metric.
> Sorry I have to weigh in here and say that Consumer Reports is a pay-to-play service now, where often the worst products & services are not the best, and often times criminally bad.
Agreed. As a PSA do not use the True Car services that are "included" in a membership. It's basically a free pass to sell all of the contact information CR has on you to any dealership that's paying them for leads. You will be hounded for weeks if you try to use that service. I recently found out, through a family member, that the deceptive practice still exists when they were trying to get actual dealer invoices (which CR used to provide, but no longer does). I cannot not recommend CR enough.
Not sure if it's any relation to TrueCar.com, but FWIW I used them 7(?) years ago to purchase a hard to find used car and had nothing but a good experience.
From wikipedia, I gather they've tweaked their compensation models and exec team since then, so no idea what they're like now.
Effectively, everyone is AutoTrader though, and you should never give any insurance or auto quote company a real phone number or non-spam email.
> ...and you should never give any insurance or auto quote company a real phone number or non-spam email.
That is the point. Given the reputation CR tries to uphold and their relationship and integration with True Car there is not much warning (if any) using that feature in CR will result in dumping your contact information to many dealerships and is a dark pattern one wouldn't expect from CR given the end user is paying for the service. For most non-technical folks I can't imagine this experience is positive after they've handed over their actual phone # and email.
I can't vouch for whatever the state of True Car is right now, but several years ago (more than once) I went there for information on the average selling price of new cars.
They had a nice histogram, showing the range and most common price and how far off msrp it was.
I don't know how accurate it really was, and if it was accurate, someone might have "gotten to them" in later years to inflate the statistics and preserve profit margins.
But it seemed to me really valuable information for negotiating a new car purchase. The special True Car price and "services" and all that seemed like a diversion to me.
It's like some other things on the Internet - a sensible person subsists on the free "teaser" information and never ever engages in any sort of relationship.
Apart from an indication of what a fair price is, the histogram showed relative discounts between models, and there's frequently/always ones that are being disdained by the public that are very good cars and dealers are desperate to move, versus ones that are in high demand that they won't discount.
I've been a subscriber and I am a half hearted fan of Which. IT wise their advice is complete arse: This is a consumer champion that only recommends either Apple or MS - there appears to be no other offerings. To be fair, I last read a Which review at least two years ago.
I'd describe Which as a good starter for 10, these days, but no more.
They do a decent legal angle and always have done, ie consumer rights - that's their forte for me.
> CR hasn’t completed an insightful review in ages. It isn’t even worth subscribing prior to a major purchase.
> I find independent YouTubers significantly better.
Could me extremely skeptical. "Independence" on YouTube is very cheap and easy to fake.
IMHO, YouTube is mainly useful for video of someone poking at a product, because for some reason retailers and manufacturers don't provide good enough media on product pages to get anywhere close to substituting for seeing something in person.
How would one know if Youtuber is independent? Say, I need to buy a lawnmower. How do I know which reviewers are good and which are idiots and which are paid shills? It's kinda hard to figure it on YT. If I have a specific product in mind, I can look through YT reviews of this specific one as a point of information. But if I have 100 potential lawnmowers to sort through, I won't watch every YT review for 100 products, I'd have to take a sabbatical for that. YT doesn't fill the niche.
I don't know if it's pay-to-play, but it sure feels like it. Many years ago, I had a house built, and I decided to outfit it with all the appliances, convinced I could do a better job picking out good equipment, and getting better prices. I settled on Consumer Reports' best pick: GE "Gold" appliances, and I bought them all. Within 2 years, every single one -- oven, microwave, dishwasher, refrigerator, washer, and dryer -- had problems. I will never trust CR for anything again.
I'm talking about plastic breaking, fans dying, switches failing, etc. I only HAD to replace the washer and dryer, and the mismatched, second-hand units I got were still going strong after a decade. I asked the used appliance salesman if he wanted my old ones, for free, to refurbish. He asked what brand they were. I told him. He said no. Those models were THAT bad. But CR said they were the best on the market.
> I have to weigh in here and say that Consumer Reports is a pay-to-play service now
Do you mean to say that they receive money to issue reviews (which would be alarming)? Or do you mean to say they charge fees to access review information (which has always been the case AFAICT)?
They also pander to their customer base. You'll never hear them say a bad word about the kinds of high end but not "I own a private jet" luxury products that high middle class consumers (who are their target market) tend to own. Nobody resubscribes to media that tells them they're doing it wrong.
Haha. It gets even better, which I discovered while researching a TV that was on sale and the store said their price was the lowest on some price matching service. But when I checked the service they were the only one selling the specific model! Turns out each major chain gets their own model number for certain products like TV’s and refrigerators. Just to fuck with consumers trying to make an educated choice.
>"Just to fuck with consumers trying to make an educated choice."
No, the retailer-specific model numbers are requested or required by the retailers, who either want a slightly different featureset, or just want to avoid people doing price-matching. The manufacturers don't really like it.
Sometimes there's something to those retailer-specific models. When our child was young enough to need a car seat, we looked at the top-rated model on CR. It was rated pretty well by customers at various websites, except consistently for features X, Y, and Z, which seemed pretty significant to me. Lo and behold, we go to store A, and realize they have the "limited edition A model" which actually specifically addressed all the complaints in customer reviews about the generic model. We loved that car seat.
Sometimes those retailer-specific tweaks are kinda questionable, but sometimes, if it's the right retailer, they're actually pretty thoughtful.
This happens with a local store here called "Video Only", and they will typically stock higher end features. Example: A common Samsung Plasma could be found all over town for say, $800. The Video Only one was $900, and would drop to like $650 when it's time to move the new stuff in.
Their people will tell you all about doing that too.
The difference?
The set I got for $650 (and again, not exact, just representative numbers here) had the faster video processor and ran at 120Hz, which means the 3D capability ran at a full 60Hz for each eye, and game mode was low lag. Both very nice options, and finding them together sometimes meant buying another expensive model that comes with other fat margin, mostly useless features.
I have no doubt it's all about the price matching, but sometimes, depending on the retailer and their business model, it can be about differentiation, like actually having something better in some distinct way. The Video Only people cater to the home theatre crowd and tend to stock sets that are high technical performers at great prices.
Seeing it in the other direction, WalMart tends to have their special edition of whatever it is, and it's almost always price / performance, and or some extra pack in, or size change.
> Turns out each major chain gets their own model number for certain products like TV’s and refrigerators. Just to fuck with consumers trying to make an educated choice.
You:
> No, the retailer-specific model numbers are requested or required by the retailers, who either... or just want to avoid people doing price-matching.
I mean, I don't see the difference. both of you are in agreement it's to fuck people trying to price match. I guess the fact that the retailers insist on it makes it okay in your mind??
Meanwhile, I doubt there are any real featureset differences for most things with model numbers. There are cheap versions of clothing for Walmart, but that's ironically going the other way and trying to confuse the customer by making them think they are the same items.
I worked at a mattress retailer after college. Each retailer would have a slightly different version of the same model. So as an example one would have 2 inches of memory foam and another would have 1.75 inches of memory foam and 0.25 inches of latex foam. But otherwise it’s the same. They did it to make comparison shopping and price matching difficult. In reality I’m not sure how well it worked. Salespeople would match prices anyway to get the sale.
Joke's on them. I don't buy things that have only a single review; too easily gamed. I look for products that have a lot of positive reviews. Obscure models probably have worse support too. Unless you really know what you're looking for, something that lots of people enjoy using is generally the safest choice.
That's how they can declare "we do price match" without ever doing any price match. Surely you didn't expect the price match for a different model, did you?
Haven't consumers learned the game as well? It seems pretty obvious that if LG sells a bad microwave then I probably shouldn't trust that their other microwaves would be any good either. And why would I buy a microwave with no review over a microwave with a positive review? There's got to be at least one good microwave on their site.
Manufacturers have 100% control over their website.
They can delete reviews, they can keep the reviews and start shipping a slightly different product instead, they can ask certain customers to write positive reviews for incentives. The list goes on and on.
It's asymmetric warfare and manufacturers hold all the cards. That's why there generally are consumer protection laws, and not the other way around, e.g. protecting manufacturers from consumers (lol).
The semi-good news is that for most consumer goods like microwaves, it doesn't really matter, because they are all "good enough".
The manufacturer/seller commonly games the reviews so even new products tend to have a few glowing reviews right off the bat.
And if you use the scale that if a manufacturer produces one bad microwave that all their microwaves are bad, I suggest cooking over a fire as no manufacturer is going to meet your judgement scale.
I know I'm five-gajillion comments in, so this is like spitting in the ocean: call a local repair place (unaffiliated) and ask them what to get. The local fridge/appliance repair (group) -- any of the five of them -- will happily chat for an hour about any major appliance in your house. They'll also gossip like fishmongers about who's good at what services, etc.
In general, for very large appliances (large fridges; double-stoves; double ovens) you can just ask them to keep an eye out at the local restaurant auctions. My house came with a 48" prosumer fridge. When my fridge died I got a 10-year-old exact replica from a warehouse for 3500$, rather than 18000$. It's worked flawlessly for 8 years, now.
I just wrote a couple commments here talking about actually talking to people. It's how I still prefer to buy many things.
Reviews? Have pretty much ignored them for many things. It has been hard to see the value, frankly. There are always a lot of them, and the information quality has been high noise and dubious in many cases.
When I am able to shop in an actual store, like for appliances, I've always had great luck talking to the service techs.
I just ask them which models are coming back to the store, and or for a recommendation.
My last washer, dryer, dishwasher and stove were all purchased this way and have ran for a long time now. Needed a new element for my dryer and stove a while back and both were available, easy to install.
And that's the last question: Service. What's available and can I get parts, etc...?
Another failure mode can be testing the wrong things. Companies will make products to do well in tests or otherwise appeal to consumers even if that makes their product actually worse. For example maybe tyres would only be tested in a straight line (rather than when cornering) or when unworn (so allowing shallow grooves to allow for a thinner wall and shorter life).
I recently came across a YouTube channel where a guy does various thorough-seeming tests of a medium range of brands for a bunch of product categories (think spanners and scissors and suchlike) and he’ll talk quickly and provide lots of numbers but when you think a little more, it seems that there isn’t much reason for the test results to correlate with a good product (eg maybe if your Phillips head cams out it is because that is what it’s meant to do and not because it’s bad)
Consumer Reports is my first stop whenever I look to purchase some non trivial item. I typically use the top five from their recommended list to quickly narrow down my initial result set. Then I'll cross reference with Wirecutter to see if they are in agreement (usually are). If I'm down to one or two choices at that point I'll try to find some unbiased reviews on YouTube. Not a perfect system, but I find it works pretty well compared to just going right to a Google search result.
I usually just search the topic plus "reddit." The advice from a subreddit on something will usually be reliable.
Then other times I take a chance on Amazon, like the ~$700 Viribus mountain e-bike I got a few months ago. E-bike enthusiasts seem to say that price range is universally junk, but it's been treating me great on trails and the road. Oddly can't find anyone else talking about it online but the Amazon reviews were good.
Mountain biker here. If I may hate on your decision here for a second.
The reason nobody is talking about the bike you got, is because it is simply so bad, nobody who rides remotely seriously as a hobby or otherwise would even consider it as part of the category of mountain bikes.
I know you probably have fun riding it around on some dirt or gravel or something - but really, it's not a mountain bike.
Disclaimer - I'm not even that wild a rider at all.
I would have those breaks burned out in less than one decent, and probably tear the drivetrain apart on my first or second climb (tripple front derailleur? really?)
The geometry is whack and the tires are trash. That thing that looks like a front fork, is not. I would blow that up first day too, without a doubt.
I don't think you appreciate the world of difference between something like this, and even a cheap 2.5k ebike. (Yes that is cheap. You have the dollar store equivalent of an ebike.)
You should have saved your money and gotten a nice second hand kona hard tail or something, rather than buying and rewarding chineesium scrapheap contenders.
You're probably familiar with laptops and such to some degree.
This is the equivalent of someone buying the top reviewed amazon promoted laptop, sorted by cheapest, with some kinda piece of shit 1152×648 screen, 4gb ddr2 ram, 2.xGhz celeron processor, and telling people it's a gaming pc because it says gaming on the box. Then commenting how you find it odd nobody in the gaming space is talking about it :)
Harsh I know but... that's life. Sorry. I hope you enjoy riding and upgrade your bike soon. I just wish that such a e-waste disaster wasn't your stepping stone.
You can understand I didn't want to spend thousands to start out a hobby I wasn't even sure I'd get into. If it lasts me a year that's good enough. My next step would be doing my own build.
I have no illusion that it's the best bike in the world, but it certainly works for my combination of roads and bike trails. I wouldn't put it on some crazy steep obstacle course or huge jumps but I wasn't looking to do any of that anyway.
But what's the big deal about a triple front deraileur?
Parent underappreciates that the difference between (nothing) and (anything) is infinite, and the difference between (less good) and (better) is finite.
To me it just sounds like the PC gamers who insist that anyone who wants to 'game' needs an RTX 3070 at a minimum. They have unrealistic ideas of what the person actually wants to do. Someone who's spending a small amount on mountain bikes isn't going hard downhill.
I really don't think any analogies to PCs and games works. This is more like taking an underpowered car on the freeway. Yeah it's going to be able to get up to speed but without the acceleration that's really needed. And I don't know that I would have known better when I'd first gotten my license without being told. We don't know that someone wouldn't take this bike on well-maintained trails a few times and then decide to "graduate" to jumping over roots and rocks or w/e.
Not to mention not knowing how well the electric part is done, especially the battery. I'd be ok taking my $200 commuter on some light trail because I'm mechanically inclined and I've got the measure of it. I have no idea about how to assess the electricals but given the cost-cutting, bad workmanship, and bad design I can see in the rest of the bike's build, I'd be really concerned about that.
I do understand. That's why I recommend the second hand hardtail kona for the same price (or cheaper).
> If it lasts me a year that's good enough
I don't like this attitude because it is wasteful. That's another thing I was taking issue with. Worse because it's an ebike. If it was just some aluminum it wouldn't be nearly as bad, but still kinda bad.
> But what's the big deal about a triple front deraileur?
More moving parts, super unreliable, always low quality.
Modern mtbs use a 1x11 or 1x12 drivetrain (no front derailleur at all, never mind 3x).
> Modern mtbs use a 1x11 or 1x12 drivetrain (no front derailleur at all, never mind 3x).
... which creates much more chain wear from chain crossing ...
> More moving parts, super unreliable, always low quality.
I have a 35 year old Shimano Deore XT front derailleur. I raced the bike hard in the 80s during "the prehistory of UK mountain bike racing". I then rode it for another 8 years, doing several multi-thousand mile tours on it (before the name "gravel bike" had come along). Then I used it as a city commuter for another 5 years.
The derailleur has never failed me, has always been reliable and is built better than most contemporary equivalents.
The fad for 1x setups illuminates some of the pros, but because it's largely a fad, fails to shine a similar light on the cons. For crazy downhill racing, 1x is an obvious choice. For ultra-distance events, long distance off-road touring and general gravel duty, the choice is not quite so obvious.
I set my cyclocross up with a triple front and a touring rear. The cycle shop questioned me on why I did it. I explained that the last mile was also 600 foot climb. The super fit kid working there was like "that hill is easy, I do that on my speed gears". I said "yea but look at me". He said "true". then proceeded to say he couldn't install it because shimano wouldn't recommend it (too many tooth delta). But he'd adjust it if I put it on my self. So I did. Basically it's a road front with a MTB small, and a mtb cassette in the back.
It's got 5k miles on it and works fine. Just needs little tweaks every once and a while and you can't do full crosses like Big Big. But it goes as fast and as torquey as you could please (or can buy).
These things work pretty well. Just learn to tweak em or get them tuned up.
> The derailleur has never failed me, has always been reliable and is built better than most contemporary equivalents.
Why are you comparing your name brand derailleur from a reputable company (from a time when there was basically only x3) that you say is still better than contemporaries, with the absolute worst of those contemporaries, as a way to somehow imply this particularly bad contemporary is worthwhile?
Wild train of thought.
Interesting how you assert 1x setups as a fad for mountain bikes, and then go on to talk about how it's not a clear choice for... long distance touring? Gravel biking? What are you talking about lol
> then go on to talk about how it's not a clear choice for... long distance touring
I guess you've not ridden the Great Divide? Long distance mountain bike touring. You could do it on a gravel bike, but it would be much more comfortable on a mountain bike.
Gravel biking ... mountain biking ... the difference is mostly in the eye (or saddle) of the beholder.
Right, that confirms it. I'm sorry but you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
> I guess you've not ridden the Great Divide? Long distance mountain bike touring.
That is the most easy going barely off road biking on earth. Thousands of miles of fire and access roads, with a few miles of zero difficulty single track.
> You could do it on a gravel bike, but it would be much more comfortable on a mountain bike.
"A mountain bike". The overwhelming majority of mountain bikes are unsuitable for this. You wouldn't use any of the most popular types: trail, downhill, enduro.
Gravel biking and mountain biking are world's apart.
The closest thing to gravel biking or other long distance off road biking in mountain biking is cross country - but even then xc is _way_ more demanding than gravel. You can't ride gravel bikes on xc routes. Gravel biking is not a form of mountain biking. There does not need to be any elevation change of any kind to gravel bike. There are no features on a gravel trail.
Anyway, sure, a hard tail xc bike is probably the best bike for that trip just due to the comfort of the larger tires. I bet you'd actually be just as happy with a fatty gravel bike though.
You know, I just went and searched to see what people ride on that trail to confirm my suspicion about big tire gravel bikes. Would you look at that - I'm right. Hard tail xc / gravel bikes with fat tires.
Additionally, the vast majority of them are running 1x front chainrings.
Surprise surprise, I know what I'm talking about, and the people that seriously ride the trail you're trying to use to one up me made the same choices I recommend. What a "fad".
> Why are you comparing your name brand derailleur from a reputable company (from a time when there was basically only x3) that you say is still better than contemporaries, with the absolute worst of those contemporaries, as a way to somehow imply this particularly bad contemporary is worthwhile?
Because the GGP -- you? -- didn't specify "the absolute worst of those contemporaries" but just complained about how "front triples" -- which implies all front triples -- "suck". So the GP quite reasonably showed that they don't.
I mean, if you want to be that literal about it I guess I can't fault you. I would expect someone to scope the conversation appropriately. The tripple I'm talking about is in the context of tripples on brand new 600 dollar e-mountain bikes. They will all be trash.
Is that a fairer statement, or would you like to just say I'm once again moving the goalposts by clarifying?
> Is that a fairer statement, or would you like to just say I'm once again moving the goalposts by clarifying?
No it isn't and yes I would: Now you're trying to move the conversational goalposts by calling your moving of the goalposts "clarifying".
This conversation simply never was about your snobbish True Mountain-Biking Scotsman perspective, and no amount of your attempts at obfuscation will make it have been so.
I considered secondhand, but a used battery has a good chance of being bad or on the way out, and a good new battery is expensive.
I doubt this bike is going to be ewaste soon though. I know a few people I might give it to who might use it. And I drive old cars into the ground instead of buying new so far, so I think I have a good track record on waste.
Even if I wanted to just throw it out, the battery and frame are recyclable.
Front triple is a way to extend the range of gearing without spending much. It's also used to dishonestly claim "21 speeds" since a lot of those are in the overlap; the standard is to be explicit, e.g. 3x7.
In other words it's a sign that the bike is built to a price, and maybe to a list of features and not actually to a quality standard.
Not necessarily bad (I'd trust any 3x Shimano drivetrain assuming it's installed correctly) but it's a sign to watch out.
You're being mean. It's clear that this bike wouldn't work for you, but it apparently does work for your parent. Stop trying to convince people they shouldn't enjoy things.
To go with your analogy, if someone bought the laptop you're describing and was having fun playing games, can't we see that as a good thing? We don't have to get them hooked on more powerful more expensive options.
I’m not so sure. The problem of BSOs… bike-shaped objects, a.k.a. low-quality bicycles, has been a problem for a long time. I rode a BSO for a long time before I knew better.
Sometimes you don’t understand what those things are until later. Sometimes the shape is weird and you don’t know how poorly you’re treating your body until you switch to a reasonable bike (and oh, random pains go away). Often the parts are substandard or nonstandard… some part wears down and then you can’t easily repair the bicycle.
It’s hard to trust comments from random consumers because I see so many bicyclists out there which very obviously lack the knowledge, skill, or will to set up or ride their bicycle reasonably. I see people on the road with horribly maladjusted seats, or people who ride a geared bicycle but have no clue which gear they should be in.
With a low-quality bicycle, a bad setup, or poor technique, you end up putting more strain on your body. It’s not necessary to go to more expensive options but you should take some care in choosing & setting up your bicycle.
The other real problem with cheap bad bikes is quality control matters on a device that (here in Europe) you might effectively be trusting your life to. As a poor student I had a BSO a year for three years, until I could afford a better object. The first died in traffic when the derailleur came out of the frame, leaving a burred hole behind, and a bus honking at me as it just managed to avoid squishing me. The second died when the pedals sheered off the crankshaft when I pushed down hard going up a hill. The third one died when I went over a large pot-hole in the cycle lane, bending the forks in the process. Absolutely none of these things should be able to happen. That they did is, of course, testament to the false economy (and great danger) of BSOs. In the States I understand that they're likely to be viewed as toys, but in Western Europe they're overwhelmingly likely to be used as transportation by those with little money, in busy, city centre traffic. There's a reason Dutch bikes have a reputation for quality, weigh a ton, last forever, and we surprisingly expensive.
The difference is that the laptop breaking won't leave the user stranded and potentially eating dirt. I don't know what GGP means by the trails they're riding but I've looked at the homepage[1] and I wouldn't trust the bike on technical terrain. There's a very real safety issue.
GP could have been gentler, but they're right to say it's not a mountain bike, and shouldn't be ridden like one.
And that sucks. The things we buy should be fit for the advertised purpose. Mountain biking should be more accessible and there should be trails that GGP can ride on a safe budget bike without requiring that much fitness.
By trails I mostly mean maintained dirt trails found in state/national parks, but I have hit some good bumps/holes in this thing. I got a suspension seatpost and I hardly feel bumps at all anymore.
Can you show me an example of technical terrain where this line would be drawn?
It's pretty rocky and you can carry a ton of speed in some parts. It will definitely eat up cheaper bikes if you aren't careful.
If you want to find more examples of why cheaper bikes struggle to handle that type of stuff, I'd look up "walmart bikes vs mtb trail" or something along those lines on youtube. Lots of videos and they are usually somewhat entertaining. That said, your bike looks better than those and if you respect its limits, then it should be okay. The trails you describe sound fine for that type of bike, just be careful on hard bumps and stuff.
I explicitly recommended something more capable and long lasting for the same price, so I really don't know why you're claiming I want them to do something unrealistic.
The whole point for me was that I wasn't fit enough for a normal bicycle and didn't have the motivation to work up to it. With the ebike it feels like I can go anywhere I want and still get some cardio exercise doing it. If they're recommending an expensive non-ebike, that's just silly.
As an avid cyclist too, I think the biggest misunderstanding is you mentionned "trail", which you are probably confusing with "non paved path". That Bike Shaped Object mentionned up there would totally be destroyed in a few hours of riding any challenging trail at a decent speed. The fork would bend and lockup itself, the brake pads would be dead before reaching the bottom of the hill.
Another problem with buying such a lowend bike online is they are very often badly assembled. You might find quickly that it becomes noisy because some parts were installed without enough grease, or components may become nearly impossible to remove because of oxydation when it will become time to replace them, and it may just be unsafe because something hasn't been torqued to spec. I once had a thorough look at these kind of bikes and a sticker on the fork clearly stated it was not really rated to be used off road. Thanksfully the CE norms have been done so that bicycles do not explode on potholes filled roads so even a bike not made for off-road is made to survive common abuses on and off the pavement.
My biggest issue with these kind of cheap e-bikes with stupid barely functionnal gimmicks such as (badly) suspended fork and chinese low end electric system is they often turn very quickly to the landfill because something end up being non functionnal and the owner do not know how to fix it himself and which component to replace wit. So to the eyes of many what you really bought appears to be waste (or soon to be) which would have been better replaced by something that might last better. Take the same bike, replace the suspended fork with a steel rigid fork and remove the electronics and you have a bike that can be ridden for years with decent maintenance. But how many people will do that instead of sending it to the landfill and replacing it with the same shit when it gets to this point?
Having said that the good thing with cycling is you don't have to have the newest more expensive bike to enjoy riding and as long as you do it within the capabilities of the bike. And suprisingly a bike can be operated for long while being in a very bad state as long as speed is kept low, squeaking and grinding his way to your destination.
> "trail", which you are probably confusing with "non paved path"
This terminology difference might be meaningful in biking circles, but the places I go are designated as "trails" both colloquially and often by various governments.
> Take the same bike, replace the suspended fork with a steel rigid fork and remove the electronics and you have a bike that can be ridden for years with decent maintenance.
Wouldn't it be too heavy as a normal bike? From what I understand, ebike frames work out cheaper because they don't have to care about not making them heavy.
Well terminology is important depending on who you are talking to. Some governments may call that trail but riding down a black track at Whistler or Champery is different than just riding along on a non technically challenging gravel road/path. Besides, trail bike is a term used by the bicycle industry for a category of bikes that are much more capable than a cross-country mountain bike on challenging terrain and downhills while not being as much extreme as a Downhill bike with double crown forks which are pigs uphill.
As for your other question it really depends on the kind of e-bike.
Well integrated e-bike from bigger companies have the engine in the bottom bracket area so you can't remove that and the battery is usually so integrated inside the frame. Most cheap e-bike like yours, if it is the same as the one I see on the viribus website, are regular cheap alu frame on which they have strapped a battery on the standard 2 bolts usually dedicated for the water bottle holder cage and the engine is on the rear wheel. So the frame is pretty standard in that regard. Remove the battery and swap the rear wheel for a regular rear wheel and you have a conventional very entry level hardtail.
I made a good and realistic recommendation for the price range, that would leave OP well off in the long run.
I understand that you could say the ebike part is a hard requirement but, well, I don't think someone who knows so little about mountain biking or biking at all is in a position to make that kind of hard requirement in an informed way.
I also understand that you could read this as really pompous, but please consider what someone saying otherwise amounts to:
"I NEED an ebike mtb, but I also know nothing about mtbs or ebikes"
Suggesting a normal bike to me is not good or realistic at all. Electric is a hard requirement because the whole point is that I don't have the time or motivation to build up to riding steep hills and long distances without power. I can do that right away now, and it's rewarding enough that I keep doing it and getting exercise. I also wanted something suitable for dirt and bumpy terrain, so, a mountain bike style made the most sense.
I used to ride a road bike occasionally but the difficulty turned me off. If I'm stuck with an unpowered bike I just won't ride.
The problem is that “mountain bike” means two things. To an MTB rider, it’s a vehicle optimized for mountain riding where the top priority is rider’s safety.
To everyone else, it’s a category of vehicles capable of off-pavement riding on trails. They should be referred to off-pavement bikes.
Mountain bikes are like SUVs. Only a small % of people take either off road or in any way challenge their capabilities.
But the same can be said for most bikes. Very few folks actually run the tour de france or any other competitive race. People get all excited by capabilities or let those who do know and use those features influence their buying.
This is simply untrue. For the standard of bike that someone who knows bikes would call a mountain bike - they are ridden on trails regularly. People are not spending 3k+ on a really inefficient and slow bike to ride around their cities and neighborhoods.
You presumably are not actually knowledgeable about mountain bikes and riding them?
"No true mountain biker would ever call this a mountain bike"... yet go in any sporting goods store, anything with fat tires and or a suspension, upright handlebars, thumb shifters, it's likely labeled a mountain bike and would probably disintegrate on a downhill or cross trail. It's still a mountain bike to 95% of people.
And yes, I used to cross trail several times a year in MO and mtb park (duthie hill) downhill (stevens) when I moved to Seattle, then watched several people get massive concussions and stayed with snowboarding.
If a thing becomes mainstream it gets diluted. The top 1% definition of a thing is not the thing exclusively.
Pal, come _on_. Read my initial comment, and any other comment thereafter. I was very clear and explicit that I was giving this criticism from the perspective of not "anybody" but rather someone who actively mountain bikes.
You're still not understanding. Those bikes you were talking about - while they may be marketed as 'mountain bikes' (a term anybody can use for anything) - are not fit for the purpose of mountain biking (a set of well establish sports and related types of riding).
You have now moved on to confusing the way marketers lie in their descriptions of bikes in order to sell to the ignorant, with the actual and established sports that comprise mountain biking and the bikes used therein.
> The top 1% definition of a thing is not the thing exclusively.
Everybody who mountain bikes (more than once har har har) does so on an actual mountain bike. It's not the 1%. It's more like the 99%. People don't repeatedly take these wallmart bikes down trails. Nobody survives that setup long enough to make it in to the group you can by any good standard call mountain bikers.
Go to your local trail that isn't some fireroad or featureless single track, and tell me how many people you see on shit bikes like this.
You know, I'd normally agree with you about this diluted point as it relates to many other things, but I can't here. For example - car racing is not just formula 1 or other top tier engineering categories. The vast majority of car racing is amateur and hobby stuff in comparatively low or very low spec vehicles. The difference is that you can "technically" compete with a formula one car on a racetrack in a 1997 nissan micra with 40hp. The micra can cruise around the track basically indefinitely, stopping only for fuel - and complete the race days after the f1 car. A road is a road.
This is not the case with mountain biking. All non mountain bikes basically explode on contact with mountains. It's self selecting such that people who continue to mountain bike past the first outing or two, must do so on a purpose built good quality bike.
It is in this distinction, that you are missing the point.
It's unacceptable to me that when I have _clearly_ been talking in the context of real mountain biking, you are now deciding, it seems, to take the totally walked back, side stepped, and frankly revisionist approach of only now saying "well technically these bikes are labeled mountain bikes so I'm right". Nuh uh.
> I was very clear and explicit that I was giving this criticism from the perspective of not "anybody" but rather someone who actively mountain bikes
Yeah, and everybody else was pretty clear and explicit that that perspective is irrelevant to, like, 95% of people.
Edited to add:
> You have now moved on to confusing the way marketers lie in their descriptions of bikes in order to sell to the ignorant, with the actual and established sports that comprise mountain biking and the bikes used therein.
That's not the problem. The problem is that you started out by confusing the "actual and established sports that comprise mountain biking and the bikes used therein" with this discussion, which was an ordinary amateur consumer talking about ordinary amateur consumer products and reviews thereof, and every time someone tried to steer the discussion back to the topic at hand, you've gotten more and more snitty-snotty about your irrelevant No True Mountain-Biking Scotsman perspective.
Tell me, when you learned to drive an automobile, was it on a $55k BMW?
It's okay to buy something cheap with the understanding that its a stepping-stone to something else. After all, if the hobby doesn't "take" and you move on to a different hobby, at least you haven't wasted too much money.
> This is the equivalent of someone buying the top reviewed amazon promoted laptop, sorted by cheapest, with some kinda piece of shit 1152×648 screen, 4gb ddr2 ram, 2.xGhz celeron processor, and telling people it's a gaming pc because it says gaming on the box.
But if the buyer of this laptop was happy with the games he was playing on this laptop, why are you getting bent out of shape? Sure, he can't run the latest AAA game in HD, but it's clear that it is working for him.
Now I actually get this attitude from gamers often because I have a 1st-gen i7 (from 2011) with no SSDs but a modern video card (GTX 660ti), running Linux of all things.
I say I use it for work and gaming, and the response I get from gamers is very similar to yours - that my "gaming" machine is trash; I should throw everything out (maybe keep the video card) and get a new machine.
The thing is, it works for me - I play mostly Starcraft 2 and have played Far Cry [2/3/4/5] on it. Those are demanding AAA games. It works for me.
Same with OP - his bike works for him, and you are recommending a different product as an alternative, which frankly is a stupid thing to do (Harsh, I know, but someone had to say it).
You'd understand if you ever needed a lawnmower and someone recommended a pair of scissors as a replacement for a lawnmower.
No, but for mountain biking I started with an entry level hardtail cannondale that if it was given to someone today, 15 years later, would still be a fun and safe bike to take down your average mtb trails. (Roughly the same cost as this person's bike, new.)
The analogy is bad though. Learning to operate something in the category of cars is not analogous to starting what you believe to be mountain biking.
More apt, would be to ask me about starting a subset of driving as a hobby - like rally driving.
"If you were going to start rally driving would you start with a 200k race spec subaru, or a 1.5k ali express golf cart car with the word rally written on it?"
I would answer, as I did - neither. I'd get something second hand and more appropriate at the same price point.
> It's okay to buy something cheap with the understanding that its a stepping-stone to something else.
If you are ok with 1) rewarding the scam artists that make these 2) contributing to a culture of low quality throwaway goods and 3) using unsafe and inappropriate tools for the job - go ahead.
> You'd understand if you ever needed a lawnmower and someone recommended a pair of scissors as a replacement for a lawnmower.
Again, no. It would be like if someone offered me a dollar store lawnmower that would break in x mins, or a scythe. You might get farther initially with this piece of shit lawnmower, but I'll get all the way with the scythe. And I'll be fitter. And it will last a lifetime.
> Same with OP - his bike works for him, and you are recommending a different product as an alternative, which frankly is a stupid thing to do (Harsh, I know, but someone had to say it).
I bet you wouldn't give this advice about your own hobbies.
>> You'd understand if you ever needed a lawnmower and someone recommended a pair of scissors as a replacement for a lawnmower.
>
> Again, no. It would be like if someone offered me a lawnmower that would break in 10 mins, or a scythe. You might get farther initially with this piece of shit lawnmower, but I'll get all the way with the scythe.
Firstly, OP said it lasted a year, not 10m. We aren't comparing something that lasts for 10m with something that lasts a lifetime, we are comparing something that lasted for a year with something that lasted longer (not a lifetime).
Secondly, does it matter if it is possible to get further with the expensive tool if you're not going that far in the first place? If the cheap tool lasts long enough to never require replacement because it isn't used for the entire distance that the expensive tool would be used for, why bother?
Thirdly, a scythe is not a replacement for a lawnmower that lasts 10m. If you're mowing a green at the golf course, a lawnmower that lasts 10m beats out a scythe that lasts a lifetime.
Fourthly, pros in a field generally don't give out the crap advice you're giving out (I have an impressive list of hobbies, which put me in contact at various times with pros from different fields). The only time I've seen the advice you give is when it's given by newbies in a particular field. They don't know any better, because they have not been in the field long enough to notice that its only a minority of first-time purchasers who will go on to want the best. The majority of people entering a new hobby don't stick with it.
> I bet you wouldn't give this advice about your own hobbies.
You'd lose that bet, because I give it all the time. Here's the advice I gave out, and how it turned out.
(To a nephew, wanting to learn guitar, at start of pandemic) "Why a $500 Yamaha? Buy a $50 guitar if you've never laid hands on one before." He only lost $50 before realising that it was not as easy as he'd thought. He would have lost even less had he simply accepted one of my old guitars.
(Acquaintance who wanted to learn to weld): "Don't get a $1000 welder; why not take some classes first to see if it's something you want to do?" After three lessons he decided that woodworking is more practical. Saved $1000 dollars there.
(To my brother-in-law thinking about getting into DIY, four years ago): "Don't get a top-of-range set of tools: Buy a cheap set and then replace the tools as they break with expensive tools." He's not yet replaced any tool in the cheap tool set, because he found that he didn't really enjoy fixing his own stuff. Good thing he didn't spend $1000s on tools.
If you were to stop and think about it you'd realise that the majority of first-time buyers in any hobby field aren't going to stick with it long enough to make the more expensive option worthwhile. If you were in the hobby for any length of time (i.e. not a newcomer) it'd be obvious as you see people join and then leave. The fact that you haven't seen this tells me that you're still quite new to it. Or maybe you just don't have that many hobbies.
In fact I still give this same advice wrt all of my hobbies: pay entry-level money to participate before paying pro money in case you don't want to continue with it.
My hobbies include playing music, painting/drawing/sketching, auto repair, metal-working and wood-working, household DIY (plumbing, plastering, etc), gardening, writing (fiction), electronics (including embedded software), basket-weaving, sewing, cooking ... and a few more that I forget.
In every single one of those hobbies I meet new people who started with the expensive stuff that would last a lifetime, but they only needed it to the last the 3 weeks it took them to decide that they do not like it. Most hobbies are abandoned before even the cheapest kit breaks.
> Fourthly, pros in a field generally don't give out the crap advice you're giving out (I have an impressive list of hobbies, which put me in contact at various times with pros from different fields). The only time I've seen the advice you give is when it's given by newbies in a particular field. They don't know any better, because they have not been in the field long enough to notice that its only a minority of first-time purchasers who will go on to want the best. The majority of people entering a new hobby don't stick with it.
Gotta heavily disagree with you on this point. Not about the sticking to a hobby, you're spot on about that, but about the advice given being "crap".
If you walked into an an actual bike shop and asked them if a $700 hardtail e-bike was a good first choice, they would tell you something like: "oh, that's far too cheap for a hardtail e-bike.. they must've cheaped out heavily somewhere to get it at that price point and trust me, you don't want to be on it when you find out what they cheaped out on. If you want an entry level hardtail e-bike, you'll probably need to spend x dollars more or you can spend about the same for a non-e mountain bike that is a decent entry level one. Just depends on what you are looking to try. If that's too much, second hand is probably your best bet."
Granted, the advice would be different if you already bought it. They would simply warn you that it's probably not strong at all and to be careful taking it on any trails.
> pay entry-level money to participate before paying pro money in case you don't want to continue with it.
Great advise. I fully agree. The thing is, entry level hardtail e-bikes typically go for much higher than $700. Ask anyone into biking about this and they will be concerned about the integrity of the bike at the price point for that style of bike. E-bikes are expensive. You are looking at entry level mountain bikes at that price point, not entry level mountain e-bikes.
A year for a bike is a dogshit lifespan. You can get decades out of decent bikes. The comparisons is reasonable, given you twisted the conversation to pivot around lawnmowers.
I see the rest of your comment is nothing but accusing me of giving bad advice, followed by examples of exactly the same kind of advice I gave or would give, mixed with a dose of bragging about being in touch with pro... welders, cooks, gardeners and other normal jobs that everyone has contacts in. Except basket weavers. I'll give you that one.
Way to totally miss the mark.
If you drop the basket weaving and gardening, and add mountain biking, machining, and lockpicking - we're about the same on being over-hobbied individuals.
I know someone who dumped 8K on a gaming rig to play Minecraft and 2d games. At the other end, some people will spend too much money just to play “entry level” and have no idea what they actually have or need to be successful (not just video games and computers!).
I’m still rocking my aluminum hardtail Trek I bought in college 25 years ago with the (gasp) three front derailleurs and the Rockshox Judy front fork. I had no idea that the tech had changed that much since I don’t ride seriously any more.
>This is the equivalent of someone buying the top reviewed amazon promoted laptop, sorted by cheapest, with some kinda piece of shit 1152×648 screen, 4gb ddr2 ram, 2.xGhz celeron processor, and telling people it's a gaming pc because it says gaming on the box. Then commenting how you find it odd nobody in the gaming space is talking about it :)
It seems far more like its someone buying that cheap laptop, primarily using it to surf the web and play solitaire (or FPSes from 2001) and talk about how great it is. And it is great for what they're doing. Who needs 8 cores and 32 gigs of RAM? The answer is some subset of people between "everyone" and "no one".
eh, you can buy a great hardtails for 800-1.2k, even less if buying second hand. the main thing to point out is that at $700 including all the electronic add ons the components will be worse and trail rideability/durability will suffer significantly compared to even a low end mtb at the same price range. I've let friends use my nice bike while I ride my crap "general purpose" bike and it works on easier trails... (probably) safe enough on those trails, but still wouldn't recommend it.
FWIW I also got an E-bike in that price range and it began to seriously degrade after a year or so of daily use. It was great for that first year, though. If I were to get another E-bike, I'd move up to the mid-tier price range.
What started to degrade specifically? Did you try a new battery?
This was my first ebike, so I wanted to test the waters with something cheap. If it starts falling apart, I'll probably build a custom one or two and spend more money since ebike riding's been working great for me to get consistent exercise and go on trails more conveniently.
I started losing battery life and motor torque (though maybe this is related to the battery -- this is not my area of expertise). Hills that I used to be able to cruise up without much effort started to require real work to assist the motor. Battery life degraded to around 50% of the initial capacity.
I think your strategy is totally valid, and I do that with most power tools in my shop. Buy the cheap one, and when it breaks, make a call on how to upgrade.
For me, I actually side-graded to a Onewheel electric skateboard (https://onewheel.com/) at the very beginning of the pandemic.
As a commuter vehicle, it's less practical than an e-bike. You can't carry as much (limited to a backpack), and it's almost certainly an order of magnitude more dangerous (but more fun!). The biggest downside for me us the inability to take my dog with me (I used to tow him in one of those bike trailers for kids). But all of these don't really apply in WFH pandemic times.
On the other hand, being able to pick up and carry the Onewheel opens up a lot more commute options that aren't as easy on an e-bike. In particular, pairing it with public transit is powerful. It's difficult or impossible to load a bike into crowded light rail car, but trivial to fit in with a Onewheel.
Where I live in Seattle, I can Onewheel 1.5 miles to the nearest light rail station in SoDo, take the train 7 miles north to Greenlake, and then Onewheel another 1 mile to my friend's house. The whole trip takes 40 minutes. It's 30 minutes by car.
I also go grocery shopping with it. In the store, I just stow it in the bottom shelf of the cart. This makes grocery shopping super frictionless, because I don't have to lock up a bike or anything. I just don't get more than 2 bags of groceries at a time. Grocery shopping is so frictionless for me now, that is not a big deal. It's a 5 minute ride (1 mile) to the store, I'm in and out in 10 minutes, and then back home in 5 more.
The only times I drive anymore are when I'm not traveling alone or when it's raining heavily (I am fine to Onewheel in the typical light Seattle rail).
It's really revolutionized mobility for me, much more than the e-bike ever did.
> Buy the cheap one, and when it breaks, make a call on how to upgrade.
I believe popularized by Adam Savage of Mythbusters, if I'm remembering where it hit internet-widespread from.
But an excellent point, because people don't realize the % of things they're not going to use regularly. Or the fact that it usually takes (time for the cheapest version to break) to figure out if you're going to use it frequently.
(Also, side note: absolutely no professional review site has any incentive to remind you that cheaper, used, or previous model gear exists or is viable)
Adam has definitely advocated that approach. Not that I'm some kind of authority, but I strongly second it.
Early in life, my uncle Ray suggested doing that and showed off an impressive collection of tools. And he was that fix it uncle that had a big influence on me as a kid. We tore into basically everything and I never saw him without some book or other close by. One thing he liked to do was stock the car trunk in addition to the shop stuff. Road tools get lost, loaned out, abused, whatever it may take to deal with a scenario on the road. To that end, I've put some of those cheaper high count sets that come in the fold up containers. Perfect for the trunk.
And a diverse collection is really the other side benefit. Gives a person a lot of options. Most of the time they all see light use except for a few. Going expensive limits the collection unnecessarily and that limits what one can do, or might attempt to do, again unnecessarily.
The value from having a broad set of stuff generally exceeds the replacements that will come along the way. And that's mostly true, even when there are periods of inactivity. Others may benefit. Doesn't hurt to lend a tool, or a hand to help someone else get through a project.
And frankly, as people gain experience, learning where tool limits are tends to cut back on the wear and tear on even cheapo tools. It all tends to add right up.
The other strategy I would suggest is scoring tools every year at yard / garage sale time. Estates are often great for this too.
Sometimes I will see a collection and just bulk buy if I can. Over time I've lost some while moving and that was a great way to stock back up and have a lot of options for not very many dollars.
The only variation I would suggest is to avoid very rock bottom stuff, like dollar store, or that crap in the hardware store promo bin. Some of those might not even survive the first use! But, it can be hard to tell too, YMMV.
In my shop, the only thing I regret buying the super-cheap model of is a bandsaw. It's just so crappy as to not even be particularly useful for doing bandsaw-type work. But I have so many other cheap tools going strong, the strategy is definitely paying off in aggregate.
Low torque? Curious what makes a crappy bandsaw crappy.
And yup! That was the math: (cost of cheap things) * (total number of things) - (cost to rebuy) * (% of things you end up rebuying) << (cost of mid-range things) * (total number of things)
Aw man. I just signed up for the $59/yr magazine + online access. I believe the bulk of what you're saying, and that CR's methodology has value. That said the following was also part of my experience on consumerreports.com -
In the bottom footer, I click on "Ad Choices". I'm presented with a list of advertisers in a TrustArc-branded dialog. To opt out of being retargeted by consumerreports.com, there are checkboxes for three vendors: Microsoft, LiveRamp Inc. and Google Advertising Products. For seven other vendors, there's no checkbox, just instructions to visit the website: Amazon Advertising, Bidtellect Inc, Comscore B.V, Facebook, Google Inc, Kibo Commerce, and Twitter.
Also in the footer (maybe only for California residents such as myself?) there is a "Do Not Sell My Personal Information" link. It opens a OneTrust-branded dialog with the option to disable "Share My Information with Third Parties on Digital". It also declares that "If you are a Print or All-Access Member and receive Consumer Reports magazine or Consumer Reports on Health through the mail, we may share your name and mailing address for direct mail purposes with selected companies offering products or services that we believe will be of interest to you." I followed a link to a separate page, which required me to copy-paste in my just-received membership number, to opt out of this.
I wish CR did -more- reviews in each category. I know it's next to impossible to thoroughly review every single product in the world, but I would pay 10x the subscription fee if I could reliably go there and find all the current models available in the different categories.
I've got two problems with Consumer Reports reviews.
1. They aren't often comprehensive enough in their product lineup to be valuable. Obviously a hard problem to solve on product categories like consumer electronics where the product choices can count in the hundreds.
2. They aren't often including the latest and greatest in their reviews either, so I'm quite often not confident I'm getting the best bang for my buck going with their reviews.
Yeah I sing the praises of Consumer Reports all the time. I think I pay $10 annually for a subscription and every time I buy or recommend something I check with them and so far have not been let down. Their reviews almost always include objective measurements and durability testing, it’s really surprising how people miss them among more modern options.
What more can Google even do about the onslaught of ever-evolving SEO spam besides hardcode some arbitrary "winners", which would have its own set of problems? It seems like a very hard problem.
But that is the point - it is Google's problem, not ours. They don't have the best info anymore, so use someone else. There are other search engines. If Google wants us back, it is their problem to improve.
I’m guessing OP meant it’s a hard problem in general, not just for Google.
Also, the statement that Goggle doesn’t have the best information anymore seems objectively false. We can wish there were other players doing it better, but that doesn’t make it true. I’m open to the idea that Google is just riding their wave, but I’ve yet to see proof. I just see the search industry at large shedding quality results.
I think Google could step up its ranking game w/ ML eliminating a lot of bad patterns, but I'm not sure they have the will to do it, or are afraid of the consequences (every travel blogger selling an ebook will go apeshit about it for instance).
The fundamental problem is that the interests of Google do not align with the interests of it's users.
Google is not interested in serving us the "best" search results possible, they are interested in serving us their customers ads. In other words, Google search results are crap, because Google wants them to be crap.
That's far too simplistic. Google must also compete or they lose their free users followed by their paying users (ad buyers). I also think it's a multifaceted challenge that failing some genuine ingenuity won't really get solved.
Like I said though, maybe they are just riding their wave (dominance) at this point, but then I'd expect to see better results from a scrappy competitor already or soon. Here's hoping, but even as a discerning user, I haven't yet.
I'm confident that even if Google doesn't solve it, for whatever reason, someone else will eventually. In the meantime, results continue to degrade and the desire / reward to fix it will increase.
> Google must also compete or they lose their free users followed by their paying users (ad buyers).
I have no idea if that's even possible. The number of people who (a) Google pays to be the default engine for and (b) aren't even aware there are other engines is huge. If the various google search domains went offline, the number of people who wouldn't even be able to find facebook is probably a double-digit percent, let alone those who cannot figure out to fail over to bing, ddg, yahoo, whatever.
There are more than enough users aware of search to support a fledgling competitor that managed to deliver higher quality results.
That competitor simply doesn’t exist yet, and I think that’s because no one has figured out how to beat Google at search (which is why I think real ingenuity is required).
Google with its hundreds of billions in revenue should be able to solve the problem, right?
Not when compared to the trillions of dollars of e commerce revenue that is the reward for getting to the top of Google results - even if you don't deserve it.
Total ecommerce in 2021 was around 5 trillion dollars. That's revenue, and split across all players.
Somehow I think Google with the ability to devote billions to solving the problem has more resources to throw at it than any ecommerce company. Except for possibly Amazon.
Seconding this. As recently perhaps as 7 or 8 years ago, I used to shake my head sympathetically at how antiquated their business model seemed, and wondered when they'd finally close up shop. Fast forward to today, with bots, review bribery, astroturfed "buying guides", and paid content even at quality outlets like NYTimes Wirecutter, CR is now my most trusted source on purchasing anything over $100, or a product that could be crucial to my health.
> paid content even at quality outlets like NYTimes Wirecutter
Evidence for this? Is it just for stuff specifically tagged as paid content, or is there any evidence that their standard reviews might be tainted by money?
They claim the reviewers go in neutral, but I'm sorry, I just don't trust it. Thr fact that they only test a subset of products in a given competitive space alone makes this too tainted for my liking. (CR also doesn't hit every company in a space, but at least they're not incentivized to pick the ones that pay them.)
For now I've been using the NYT wirecutter folks. They do a good job posting their methodology and you can usually dig much further for what problems they found.
Whenever I visit them I get the opposite of Gell-Mann amnesia syndrome and remember how terrible their recommendations are on products I am familiar with.
I had to scroll through a whole lot to get to the part that mentions wirecutter - the only one they really mentioned was webcams, with anecdotes about how that particular webcam they recommend isn't very good. Not much talk about why the methodology is wrong.
However I do find the webcam recommendation article wirecutter did to be of worse quality than the others they had. Its a very room dependent item. Its certainly easy to look at that review having played with other webcams and say hey I think their methodology sucks.
But I recently bought a new toaster oven - I had already had a kitchenaid one that got fine reviews on most sites, but I found it to be really inconsistant. The wirecutter site had photos of the uneven toasting of the same model I had, in the exact same way that mine was. They also showed photos of their recommended toasters. I picked up their recommended one. It toasts exactly as they recommended. So its not a total loss.
I don't trust consumer reports any longer. they have amazon affiliate links. I suspect the current CEO is selling them out, bit by bit. Also, their current web format makes it hard to find recommendations on used cars.
You can buy most any product at Amazon, so the affiliate links are not an incentive for CR to rank one product better than the competitor they would otherwise also link to.
Plus Amazon affiliate links are standardized and automated to such a degree that’s there’s no chance they would manually penalize or reward CR for editorial content.
CR has biases, and they leak out in various ways. When I was doing detailed car-shopping in the 1990s, I noticed that drivetrains in American-badged cars would show significant problems while Japanese-badged cars with the same drivetrains from the same supplier would be ranked consistently higher (e.g. Isuzu vs Chevy light trucks, Mazda vs Ford sedans).
I just learned that you can get the yearbook including all tests from the previous year for like 10€, the other big testing magazine Ökotest (focused on environmental impact) offers this too.
It also makes me think that part of the problem is not only that Google's results are getting worse, it is that much of the population goes to the internet for all problems. Whether it is googling or asking on social media... the "front-line" information on the internet is simply not reliable anymore.