Comment by elromulous
3 years ago
This is definitely not a conspiracy theory. Incentives affect reviews, which is why truly unbiased review sources exist.
3 years ago
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.
But the problem is that it ultimately skews the incentives and contradicts their claim that the editors are totally isolated from the commercial part of their business.
Their homepage currently suggests the following:
> We independently review everything we recommend. When you buy through our links, we may earn a commission [emphasis mine]
The "about" page claims:
> There’s no incentive for us to pick inferior products or to respond to pressure from manufacturers—in fact, it’s quite the opposite [emphasis mine]
That's not really true when the same person who writes the reviews is the one trying to solicit kickbacks in the background, and puts the credibility of the entire website into question. Their adjusted review could be completely legitimate but there's no way to be sure so it's better to err on the side of caution.
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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
A conspiracy is when people collude in secret. A conspiracy theory is a theory that some people collude in secret. Conspiracy theories are true when they correspond to true conspiracies.
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My point is it’s a mistake to conflate anything labeled a conspiracy theory as being automatically false, which is often what happens, or the label is applied something that’s already false. Many theories turn out to be true
Exactly, if they're true it's a conspiracy fact or just a conspiracy.
And even if they do NOT take kickbacks, there's no financial incentive at all to "link" to a sales page that doesn't offer affiliate links, where there is one to link. And so the best way to handle this is to not review at all products that aren't available through said sites.
Think Southwest tickets not being available from aggregators.
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Every prosecutor is a conspiracy theorist. The courts decide whether the conspiracy theory corresponds to a real conspiracy.