points by bdavbdav 2 days ago | 0 comments
It’s not quite a full long term review, but I always liked when car mags did the “live with it for 3 months” section across a load of people. Average reviews don’t have that behind them typically.
I could take my car from the dealer and drive it for 30 minutes and learn not a lot. I could live with it for a month, and learn that it doesn’t make the wagon cover go back and forth automatically like the old one, the infotainment restarts twice as often, I can’t have X and Y visible at the same time in the digital dash, the armrest is a bit of a pain to reposition up and down if there’s a coffee in the holder, the coins rattle in the coin bin…
The “I’ve had this a year” review is always a lot more helpful.
[–] Barbing 2 days ago
[–] servo_sausage 2 days ago
I think it's a scale issue. A small group or individual can build up a trusted source of reviews, but the brand is worth a lot compared to people who are selling things, compared to the direct revenue from people who are buying.
So the incentive to sell is way more than people will pay for the reviews.
Combine that with a timing problem, a review at one year is pointless to new car buyers, since the new model is a bit different.
[–] brabel 2 days ago
I worked at a company that tried that 15 years ago. The problem is that the incentives for such businesses is perverse. It’s basically impossible to avoid people trashing a competitor’s product to promote their own, paid reviews, taking fees from manufacturers for making good reviews more visible for them (gotta pay the bills), all sorts of things that eventually makes your business unreliable just like all others.
[–] Cthulhu_ 2 days ago
There's the Michelin star thing, not sure if / how they monetize it but it's not making them any poorer. And there's some consumer organizations like (in the Netherlands) the Consumentenbond which has subscribers, but it's a bit more like a union than a review company.
[–] nickserv 2 days ago
Michelin makes tires, they originally made the star system to get people to drive to these places, thereby using up their tires.
[–] ViscountPenguin 2 days ago
Choice does a pretty good job, and is pretty in-depth.
Think of the billions wasted on inferior/sub-par/non-leading products and experiences, and the happiness opportunity cost.