#Product Reviews

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Google reneged on the monopolistic bargain

I'm on tour with my new novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT in SALT LAKE CITY (Feb 21, Weller Book Works) and TOMORROW in SAN DIEGO (Feb 22, Mysterious Galaxy). After that, it's LA, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix and more!

A funny thing happened on the way to the enshittocene: Google – which astonished the world when it reinvented search, blowing Altavista and Yahoo out of the water with a search tool that seemed magic – suddenly turned into a pile of shit.

Google's search results are terrible. The top of the page is dominated by spam, scams, and ads. A surprising number of those ads are scams. Sometimes, these are high-stakes scams played out by well-resourced adversaries who stand to make a fortune by tricking Google:

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/phone-numbers-airlines-listed-google-directed-scammers-rcna94766

But often these scams are perpetrated by petty grifters who are making a couple bucks at this. These aren't hyper-resourced, sophisticated attackers. They're the SEO equivalent of script kiddies, and they're running circles around Google:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

Google search is empirically worsening. The SEO industry spends every hour that god sends trying to figure out how to sleaze their way to the top of the search results, and even if Google defeats 99% of these attempts, the 1% that squeak through end up dominating the results page for any consequential query:

https://downloads.webis.de/publications/papers/bevendorff_2024a.pdf

Google insists that this isn't true, and if it is true, it's not their fault because the bad guys out there are so numerous, dedicated and inventive that Google can't help but be overwhelmed by them:

https://searchengineland.com/is-google-search-getting-worse-389658

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Google has long maintained that its scale is the only thing that keeps us safe from the scammers and spammers who would otherwise overwhelm any lesser-resourced defender. That's why it was so imperative that they pursue such aggressive growth, buying up hundreds of companies and integrating their products with search so that every mobile device, every ad, every video, every website, had one of Google's tendrils in it.

This is the argument that Google's defenders have put forward in their messaging on the long-overdue antitrust case against Google, where we learned that Google is spending $26b/year to make sure you never try another search engine:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-27/google-paid-26-3-billion-to-be-default-search-engine-in-2021

Google, we were told, had achieved such intense scale that the normal laws of commercial and technological physics no longer applied. Take security: it's an iron law that "there is no security in obscurity." A system that is only secure when its adversaries don't understand how it works is not a secure system. As Bruce Schneier says, "anyone can design a security system that they themselves can't break. That doesn't mean it works – just that it works for people stupider than them."

And yet, Google operates one of the world's most consequential security system – The Algorithm (TM) – in total secrecy. We're not allowed to know how Google's ranking system works, what its criteria are, or even when it changes: "If we told you that, the spammers would win."

Well, they kept it a secret, and the spammers won anyway.

A viral post by Housefresh – who review air purifiers – describes how Google's algorithmic failures, which send the worst sites to the top of the heap, have made it impossible for high-quality review sites to compete:

https://housefresh.com/david-vs-digital-goliaths/

You've doubtless encountered these bad review sites. Search for "Best ______ 2024" and the results are a series of near-identical lists, strewn with Amazon affiliate links. Google has endlessly tinkered with its guidelines and algorithmic weights for review sites, and none of it has made a difference. For example, when Google instituted a policy that reviewers should "discuss the benefits and drawbacks of something, based on your own original research," sites that had previously regurgitated the same lists of the same top ten Amazon bestsellers "peppered their pages with references to a ‘rigorous testing process,’ their ‘lab team,’ subject matter experts ‘they collaborated with,’ and complicated methodologies that seem impressive at a cursory look."

But these grandiose claims – like the 67 air purifiers supposedly tested in Better Homes and Gardens's Des Moines lab – result in zero in-depth reviews and no published data. Moreover, these claims to rigorous testing materialized within a few days of Google changing its search ranking and said that high rankings would be reserved for sites that did testing.

Most damning of all is how the Better Homes and Gardens top air purifiers perform in comparison to the – extensively documented – tests performed by Housefresh: "plagued by high-priced and underperforming units, Amazon bestsellers with dubious origins (that also underperform), and even subpar devices from companies that market their products with phrases like ‘the Tesla of air purifiers.’"

One of the top ranked items on BH&G comes from Molekule, a company that filed for bankruptcy after being sued for false advertising. The model BH&G chose was ranked "the worst air purifier tested" by Wirecutter and "not living up to the hype" by Consumer Reports. Either BH&G's rigorous testing process is a fiction that they infused their site with in response to a Google policy change, or BH&G absolutely sucks at rigorous testing.

BH&G's competitors commit the same sins – literally, the exact same sins. Real Simple's reviews list the same photographer and the photos seem to have been taken in the same place. They also list the same person as their "expert." Real Simple has the same corporate parent as BH&G: Dotdash Meredith. As Housefresh shows, there's a lot of Dotdash Meredith review photos that seem to have been taken in the same place, by the same person.

But the competitors of these magazines are no better. Buzzfeed lists 22 air purifiers, including that crapgadget from Molekule. Their "methodology" is to include screenshots of Amazon reviews.

A lot of the top ranked sites for air purifiers are once-great magazines that have been bought and enshittified by private equity giants, like Popular Science, which began as a magazine in 1872 and became a shambling zombie in 2023, after its PE owners North Equity LLC decided its googlejuice was worth more than its integrity and turned it into a metastatic chumbox of shitty affiliate-link SEO-bait. As Housefresh points out, the marketing team that runs PopSci makes a lot of hay out of the 150 years of trust that went into the magazine, but the actual reviews are thin anaecdotes, unbacked by even the pretense of empiricism (oh, and they loooove Molekule).

Some of the biggest, most powerful, most trusted publications in the world have a side-hustle in quietly producing SEO-friendly "10 Best ___________ of 2024" lists: Rolling Stone, Forbes, US News and Report, CNN, New York Magazine, CNN, CNET, Tom's Guide, and more.

Google literally has one job: to detect this kind of thing and crush it. The deal we made with Google was, "You monopolize search and use your monopoly rents to ensure that we never, ever try another search engine. In return, you will somehow distinguish between low-effort, useless nonsense and good information. You promised us that if you got to be the unelected, permanent overlord of all information access, you would 'organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.'"

They broke the deal.

Companies like CNET used to do real, rigorous product reviews. As Housefresh points out, CNET once bought an entire smart home and used it to test products. Then Red Ventures bought CNET and bet that they could sell the house, switch to vibes-based reviewing, and that Google wouldn't even notice. They were right.

https://www.cnet.com/home/smart-home/welcome-to-the-cnet-smart-home/

Google downranks sites that spend money and time on reviews like Housefresh and GearLab, and crams botshittened content mills like BH&G into our eyeballs instead.

In 1558, Thomas Gresham coined (ahem) Gresham's Law: "Bad money drives out good." When counterfeit money circulates in the economy, anyone who gets a dodgy coin spends it as quickly as they can, because the longer you hold it, the greater the likelihood that someone will detect the fraud and the coin will become worthless. Run this system long enough and all the money in circulation is funny money.

An internet run by Google has its own Gresham's Law: bad sites drive out good. It's not just that BH&G can "test" products at a fraction of the cost of Housefresh – through the simple expedient of doing inadequate tests or no tests at all – so they can put a lot more content up that Housefresh. But that alone wouldn't let them drive Housefresh off the front page of Google's search results. For that, BH&G has to mobilize some of their savings from the no test/bad test lab to do real rigorous science: science in defeating Google's security-through-obscurity system, which lets them command the front page despite publishing worse-than-useless nonsense.

Google has lost the spam wars. In response to the plague of botshit clogging Google search results, the company has invested in…making more botshit:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/16/tweedledumber/#easily-spooked

Last year, Google did a $70b stock buyback. They also laid off 12,000 staffers (whose salaries could have been funded for 27 years by that stock buyback). They just laid off thousands more employees.

That wasn't the deal. The deal was that Google would get a monopoly, and they would spend their monopoly rents to be so good that you could just click "I'm feeling lucky" and be teleported to the very best response to your query. A company that can't figure out the difference between a scam like Better Homes and Gardens and a rigorous review site like Housefresh should be pouring every spare dime it brings in into fixing this problem. Not buying default search status on every platform so that we never try another search engine: they should be fixing their shit.

When Google admits that it's losing the war to these kack-handed spam-farmers, that's frustrating. When they light $26b/year on fire making sure you don't ever get to try anything else, that's very frustrating. When they vaporize seventy billion dollars on financial engineering and shoot one in ten engineers, that's outrageous.

Google's scale has transcended the laws of business physics: they can sell an ever-degrading product and command an ever-greater share of our economy, even as their incompetence dooms any decent, honest venture to obscurity while providing fertile ground – and endless temptation – for scammers.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

#pluralistic #monopoly #seo #dark seo #google #search #enshittification #platform decay #product reviews #spam #antitrust #trustbusting

[phoenixyfriend]

I want to plug two Etsy stores that I recently had amazing experiences with.

I realized I needed a shawl pin, and all of mine were on another continent... so I decided to search out small crafters in Serbia, and see about purchasing from someone in the area because yay, small, local businesses! The ones I found weren't at any craft fairs or the like, but they did have open Etsy stores, and when I ordered from there, the sellers at both shops were incredibly sweet.

The pricing on these products is high for the area, but is very reasonable by American standards. I would expect pieces of this quality to be priced at least three or four times higher in the US, so if you're trying to support a small business and get some impressive jewelry without breaking the bank, while still paying a fair wage for the area, these are a good option.

(This isn't sponsored or anything, I'm just really happy with these shops and products and I like promoting things that bring me joy. It's the same energy as when I do fanfic rec lists, honestly.)

The first shop is Didulishop, from which I got this lovely spiral/coil brooch.

The photo really undersells the warmth of the bronze, but the color is more saturated than it looks here, and the stones are nice as well. The coiling of the piece lends a lot of visual complexity to it while looking refined and elegant, but it's pretty understated, so if you're like me and need something to hold a knit cardigan together, especially in a professional setting, this is great!

The other shop is Tangledworld. I actually got three coordinating pieces from this shop since it's much easier to order while I'm here and I don't know when I'll be returning to the States): a bracelet, a necklace, and a brooch.

I absolutely adore these. As you can see, these are a different kind of complex from the other brooch, but the art nouveau swirls are absolutely gorgeous. The pendant in particular is beautiful, and reminds me of a highly stylized Greek lyre, and while the product image showed a chain, I'm actually really happy with the hammered choker that I got instead. I didn't have any in my closet yet, and having this as my first one is great.

I ended up going into 'leaving a review' voice, but anyway. Check these folks out.

#personal #etsy #phoenix reviews #I guess?? #jewelry #product reviews #brooches

[sing-you-fools]

what the FUCK is the POINT of product reviews if you're just gonna fuckin'

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "it doesn't work but it got here fast!"

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "it's a gift so I haven't opened looked at or touched it but it got here fast!"

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "the game itself doesn't actually work but kiddo likes playing with the pieces and it got here fast!"

you are reviewing the PRODUCT not the SHIPPING if the PRODUCT sucks you leave a BAD REVIEW not FIVE F U C K I N G STARS

if you buy something as a gift for someone else and cannot personally speak to the quality of the item DO NOT LEAVE A REVIEW. DO NOT. even if the person you gave it to says it's great DON'T unless you can PERSONALLY ATTEST TO IT because they MIGHT JUST NOT WANNA TELL YOU THE THING YOU GAVE THEM SUCKS

I am SICK TO DEATH of EVERY SINGLE REVIEW for ANYTHING just being "I got this for my grandkids so I have no fuckin clue if it works at all or is remotely fun but the box wasn't squished so five stars!"

YOU'RE NOT REVIEWING UPS. YOU'RE NOT REVIEWING THE STORE YOU GOT IT FROM. YOU'RE NOT REVIEWING THE BOX IT CAME IN. YOU'RE REVIEWING THE PRODUCT. I WANT TO LOOK AT THE REVIEWS AND KNOW IF THE PRODUCT IS WORTH PURCHASHING. I CANNOT DO THIS IF ALL YOU'RE REVIEWING IS THE MOTHERFUCKING SHIPPING TIME. ASSHOLES

#this too is enshittification #given that 90% of the time these reviews mention grandkids #this is the wrong platform for this rant #i know this #but i still need to say it #rant #product reviews #enshittification #sing-you-fools

[halfspunthreads-blog]

New Garage Kit!

Finally got my hands on an old model of KOS-MOS! It's been out of stock for ages but they just did a small run recently.

It's a very striking old kit and E2046 really delivers on rare/old characters. Highly recommend if you're into modeling, but be aware they do sell 18+/adult kits.

Okay, there's a fair amount of junk left behind, but nothing seems warped or broken. (TBF I've never had snapped parts from them. Of the dozen or so figures I've ordered all have been in great shape.) Older kits always have a certain amount of cutting, smoothing, and bending.

I don't have to do any face work, which is good, since I suck at it. And hands/fingers are also a thing of my nightmares. The hair might need a little heat bending, but we'll see what it looks like on the dry fit. The details are gorgeous on KOS-MOS, but they're going to require so many painting sessions.

I need to do a bit of filling for some of the pieces, though once I grind the extra tags and stuff off it'll fit better. Plus the pegs are... really bad? I'll definitely need to drill in some better support. Outside of a couple of solid ones on the legs, they're way too shallow for weight-bearing sections.

Wait. Aren't there a ton of super delicate pieces on this kit? Like, look at them wrong and they crack thin layers?

Oh. Oh no. There are 53 pieces on this, please no. ALL of them need fit adjustments?

Well... Shit. Art is suffering, I guess.

#kosmos #xenosaga #garage kit #figurine #project update #painting #product reviews #shion uzuki #kos-mos #e2046 #halfspun crafts

[noballoonsinspace]

does anyone know of any reasonably priced headphones that will actually stay on my apparently small head?? This is kind of infuriating. They’re all “adjustable” but only from large to even larger. What the fuck help :/

#tech #technology #tech help #technology help #tech review #product reviews #product recommendations #sony headphones #sony #headphones #adhd autistic #autistic rant #autistic community #autistic thoughts #sensory sensitivity #sensory issues #sound sensitivity #i love music #musicblr #tech geek #tech gadgets #techreview #technews #techcore #music community #music tumblr #advice request #please advise #mutual aid #mutual aid request

[frodothefair]

Ok, weird idea, but hear me out.

It all started with me calling my Drunk Elephant cream "Drunk Mûmakil" cream instead.

I will post a series of reviews of real products that I own/have tried, but from the point of view of LOTR characters. Here are the ones I have so far:

Aveda haircare products by Elf-maiden Nisilë and her Gondorean husband (my and my husband's self-insert OCs)

Sézane clothing by Gollum (this will make sense once you see it, I promise)

Drunk Elephant Mûmakil skincare by Marigold Gamgee-Baggins.

Basically, the opinions and experiences are my own, completely unincentivized and unbiased, but written in the voices of the stated characters.

If anyone has any other thoughts on which character might be good to review some type of product, send them my way, and if I am familiar with the item or can relatively easily obtain it, I may do it!

@konartiste @emmanuellececchi @from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras

#lotr #lord of the rings #product reviews #lotr fanfiction #lotr fanfic

[mandana-the-service-pup]

Anyone have an everyday sunscreen recommendation for super sensitive skin?

I just realized that the “sensitive” Blue Lizard sunscreen I’ve been using hurts me. I recently tried the Bare Republic Mineral Sunscreen Lotion and it doesn’t hurt as much but if anyone has a better recommendation I’d be open to trying it.

#photosensitivity #chronic illness community #recommendations #product reviews #sunscreen #lupus #new diagnosis

[cyberheartrebel]

1/27/24

Mini post

I have been using this body wash and lotion set and it’s gotten me so many compliments on my smell. It was quite popular awhile ago but I want to bring its hype back. People are always saying how I smell like literal strawberries 🍓 🕯️

The set is the strawberry milk body lotion and body cleanser. There is also a foaming face cleanser by the same brand that I also recommend.

#body wash #lotion #product reviews #product recommendations #wonyoungism #pink pilates princess #pink wonyoungism #it girl energy #it girl #strawberry #strawberry 🍓

[rainyfestivalsweets]

Product Review: Slim Coffee

OR... I bought something so you might not have to.

Got this stuff recently off Amazon.

Sigh.

I am just not in love with it yet.

I bought it on a whim and later when I saw the price again I was like.....whaaaaaat?

ZOINKS!

But I have not been able to find a forskolin tablet so I thought what the Heck.

The tablets seems to help something as a non thermogenesic something or another but walmart doesn't carry them anymore & when I used the internet machine to order some, they cancelled my order without giving me a reason.

So..... that's my life.

But the price? Eh.

You add it to coffee. It can make it taste a little bitter. I am not sure if it is helping or not.... but it should.

When I can mask the taste.

It is like a just slightly off kilter chocolate.

It does come in a handy packet so it would be nice for on the go situations.

What do you think? Worth a shot or waste of time?

#product reviews #product #slim coffee #forskolin #metabolism booster #boosted #diet product #healthy lifestyle #getting healthy #losing weight #healthy eating #fitblr #healthy habits #operation lose this gut #weight loss #operationlosethisgut #weight loss journey #random puchase #amazon #bought it #slim and sexy #slim model #diet #dietista #diet program #weight loss product #is it worth it #why is this happening #why am i like this #why

[foolishcrow]

bought some alchemical supplies for my dab rig a while back and this amazon review title is still sending me

#product reviews #foolish posts

[sparklefartstheunicorn]

Let me introduce you to AECcorner.

These folks share all sorts of useful tips and products. Just a quick scroll showed me how to solve several of my issues with grip strength and opening packaging, A device to help me get out of a vehicle without popping my hip out of socket, and this..

Which is a convertible wedge support system for joint support. I've seen a lot of EDSers use the zero gravity lounger, but I can never get it to support my neck enough. (Tagging @thebibliosphere because I seem to recall you mentioning similar issues.)

They designed their own knee pillow for side sleepers that I think I'm going to try.

They review tons of products and even the accessability of hotels. Seriously great resource. You can find their tiktok account here, their YouTube here,

Linktree is here which includes more resources.

#disability resources #Eds #hypermobile ehlers danlos #joint pain #mobility aid #accessibility #disabled #Arthritis #product reviews #Recommendations #Jess recommends

[phoenixyfriend]

Look what just arrived!

All purchased through Bookshop.org, which... apparently lets any random person do affiliate links? So here, I made one, with all the books I've been buying: Nixy's Recs

(Bookshop.org is an online bookstore that ensures profits are all directed to small, local bookstores instead of behemoths like Amazon or B&N. You can choose a store in your area to shop 'from,' or just allow the profits to go into the a more general fund that gets distributed evenly to all bookshops in the system. This post by @ebookporn and @batmansymbol does a great job explaining how it works.)

Strong Towns and Walkable City are both books I found through the Strong Towns YouTube Channel. I haven't read these yet (they only just arrived yesterday), but if they're at all like the videos, then I have high hopes.

And here are the specific books (again, affiliate links, which I've never done before but here goes):

The Keystone Jacket and Dress Cutter: An 1895 Guide to Women's Tailoring by Chas Hecklinger (Author), Kristina Seleshanko (Preface by)

Walkable City (Tenth Anniversary Edition): How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time by Jeff Speck (Author), Janette Sadik-Khan (Introduction by)

City Planning: A Very Short Introduction by Carl Abbott (Author)

Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity by Charles L. Marohn (Author)

#books #bookshop.org #walkable city #strong towns #fashion history #drafting #pattern drafting #city planning #phoenix recs #product reviews #kinda

[sanatomarr]

Timeless elegance in a bottle

Miss Dior Blooming Bouquet smells exactly like a bouquet of freshly blossomed flowers. The scent is very feminine and floral.

The best season to wear Miss Dior Blooming Bouquet is spring and summer during the daytime. When it comes to occasion, it can be casual wear or even special occasion. But it has become an all season round favourite scent for me.

The best place to buy Miss Dior Blooming Bouquet is Dior’s department store, it is also as easily available in Sephora.

It comes in a simple pink packaging box the bottle is made out of transparent glass and the liquid inside is pink. If you love floral scents then this is a no-brainer and definitely a safe blind buy that can’t go wrong.

Photo: by sana (obsessed with this scent so much that bought all sizes)

#miss dior #perfume #product reviews #bloom #flowers #pinkcore

[ohhcinnybuns]

Detective Casino Owner Anime Inspired Earrings

I bought the cutest Sigma-inspired earrings on Etsy, and I love them! They are adorable and lightweight. I highly recommend them to any Sigma or BSD fan. Link to their Etsy shop below! 🤗

#bungou stray dogs #bsd sigma #sigma bungou stray dogs #sigma #earrings #handmade #etsyfinds #jewlery #product reviews

[edugent]

#Music #Entertainment #How-to #Gaming #Product reviews #Comedy #Fitness #Travel #Fashion #Beauty #News #Technology #Food #Health #Education #DIY #Sports #Lifestyle #Finance #Educational videos #Study tips #Academic tutorials #Study hacks #Tutorial videos #Study techniques #Test Prep #Study Skills #School trips #Academic success #Study groups

[productreview15]

Product Review Blogger: A Beginner’s Guide Including Real-World Examples

Want to become a product review blogger to earn thousands of dollars? You’re in the right place. Affiliate marketing is the BEST way to monetize a blog or website.

But there’s a HUGE competition out there.  That’s why you need to find the most effective ways to use affiliate marketing so you can make money even while you sleep.

o what’s the best way to monetize a blog using affiliate marketing?

A product review blog.

Product review blogs are NOT new. If done right, you can make thousands of dollars from product review websites. So in this guide, we’ll talk about;

What is a product review blog

Product review websites examples

How to start a product review site 

5 proven strategies to make money from a product review blog

What is a product review blog?

As the name suggests, a product review blog is where you’ll find the reviews of various products. The reviews can be on several categories such as technology, fitness, lifestyle, etc, or on a single topic such as web hosting, email marketing, etc.

A product review blogger is someone who promotes various products (mostly affiliate products) and creates awareness about those products through articles and videos to make money online. 

What type of product reviews you’ll discover on Wirecutter?

Here are a few product categories you’ll find on their website.

Technology

Electronics

Home & Garden

Pets

Travel & Outdoor

Most of the product reviews are published by New York Times journalists and the reviews are often in-depth and add huge value to their target audience. 

#marketing #digital painting #artists on tumblr #product reviews #100 days of productivity #beauty products