Comment by GavinMcG
3 years ago
Eight years ago, right? Are they refusing now? (Genuinely curious if you've got up-to-date info. If they are terribly biased I want to know it, so I can downgrade my trust, which is why I upvoted the OP about the air purifier.)
Also, it's not really clear to me that "independently review" has to mean "we completely isolate any business-related decision-making from editorial functions" as Nextgrid seems to assume.
Well it certainly calls their objectivity into question, and the objectivity is supposed to be the entire point. The way they described the better (and more expensive) desk before the shakedown made it clear that it was the best one. That they changed it to a runner-up after many attempts to solicit a kickback is a seriously bad look. I don’t trust them at all now.
They didn't change it to a runner up—they changed it to an upgrade pick, that is, still the best, but without enough marginal benefit for the substantial marginal cost. Not sure what pricing was like back then, of course, but at this point Wirecutter's recommendations run about seven hundred dollars, and NextDesk's offerings start at eighteen hundred.
And in the first article, they acknowledged the large price disparity and were very explicit that it was well deserved and worth every penny.