Comment by cogman10

9 months ago

I've noticed that a large portion of reviews are literally just rehashing reviews on amazon. And, if I were to guess, a good number of them are just these review sites pumping in "top 10 x reviews from amazon" into chatgpt and having it write their review for them.

> YouTubers do a terrible job disclosing paid promotion/free products.

The trick I think I've found for this (which isn't fool proof) is to find videos where the youtuber is actually physically interacting with the product. Doesn't work for everything, but in a lot of cases the paid promotional reviewers aren't getting their hands on the product in question and instead they are putting up stock images and reading the marketing material.

The bigger the youtuber, the harder it is to know if it's a paid promotional thing.

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cogman10

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michaelt  9 months ago

> The trick I think I've found for this (which isn't fool proof) is to find videos where the youtuber is actually physically interacting with the product.

IDK, there's a long tradition of shill reviewers being given free products "for testing" on the unspoken agreement that if the review is bad, they won't get more free products in the future.

  • singron  9 months ago

    Yeah if they have no negative reviews, that's a bad sign. A particularly scrupled YouTuber I follow typically won't do a paid video if the product isn't good and instead does an unpaid tear down video. That probably limits his opportunities to brave marketing teams with high quality products, but it also makes his reviews quite valuable.