Comment by Saint_Genet
3 years ago
Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but the IKEA one which they singled out as not recommended to buy is the only one in the article they don't earn a commission on when someone buys it
3 years ago
Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but the IKEA one which they singled out as not recommended to buy is the only one in the article they don't earn a commission on when someone buys it
This is mentioned in the first line of the article:
"you should instead buy a different purifier that totally coincidentally happens to pay affiliate marketing commissions."
i literally ran into this with wirecutter when searching for an air purifier years ago. they recommended an inferior performing coway when their own tests concluded that blueair (211+) was significantly better. they've long since removed the chart showing this discrepancy, and they still recommend coway, no doubt because that's their affiliate partner. i bought the 211+ and have been mostly satisfied with it for my studio apartment, but beware, filters are relatively expensive.
in any case, if you really care about effective air purification, buy the largest/most powerful fan you can get (CADR tries to proxy this, but is an imperfect measure), because the critical factor is getting as much of the air volume through the filters before the dust settles (literally). filter effectiveness isn't nearly as critical as throughput.
nowadays i'd probably opt for two of the ikeas instead, and put them on opposite sides of the room (but not against a wall). that'd be cheaper and likely just as effective.
You know what the messed up thing about Wirecutter's affiliate marketing is?
Their Amazon links are consistently broken to the point where the links don't point to products but are faulty search queries. Like, if you are going to compromise your reputation doing affiliate marketing, at least get the damn links right so I don't have to perform a Amazon search to find the actual product.
Some might say this is intentional, the whole point for the link is to corrupt your Amazon cookie so that they get credit for the (next?) purchase you make.
At least that's how I've always assumed the links work, not that you have to buy the exact product immediately.
This blew my mind. And would be highly unethical that Amazon should know, since the accounting often happens on the publisher's side
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This is definitely not a conspiracy theory. Incentives affect reviews, which is why truly unbiased review sources exist.
Especially when they already have a proven track record of nastiness: https://www.xdesk.com/wirecutter-standing-desk-review-pay-to...
I've used the Wirecutter, so I'm not going to claim to be totally unbiased. But I'm just not seeing any nastiness there: the reason they gave for switching their recommendation (while retaining their original recommendation as an upgrade pick) seems entirely legitimate. And as much as the company wants to emphasize the use of the word "kickback" it's not really apt: Wirecutter's model has always been affiliate linking, and that's exactly what they reached out about in their first and second emails. And when turned down, they still published the recommendation and (later) still identified it as the best option if cost isn't an issue.
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Oh wow! I hadn't seen this. Thanks for sharing.
Sometimes conspiracy theories are true. They are still conspiracy theories
“A conspiracy theory is not the same as a conspiracy; instead, it refers to a hypothesized conspiracy…”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory
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Every prosecutor is a conspiracy theorist. The courts decide whether the conspiracy theory corresponds to a real conspiracy.
There are other categories where they do recommend IKEA as the top option despite not getting a commission
Do you have proof of that? Otherwise it kind of is conspiracy theorist. I assume Hanlon's razor here rather than malice on the part of NYT/WC.
I thought the same, but IKEA does have an affiliate program.
They recommend against a bunch of things even if they get commission