My take on this is no they don’t. As long as they are truthful they only report on the quality of the product and prevent many people of spending a lot of money from losing it by buying something that doesn’t work.
If your product is shit your company does not deserve to be shielded from the backlash, this is the core of (classic) capitalism after all.
I’m legitimately shocked there are people defending the garbage Humane AI Pin, which leads me to think a lot of the criticism levied at MKBHD is made up by a PR firm working for the company. I already hated the god damn thing because it gave you hallucinations on demand. But watching his review and The Verge’s review, its an overpriced gimmick that has a camera on all the time, and does nothing a smartphone can’t already do. They didn’t ask for bad reviews, they made a godawful MV–sorry, shitty product. Now they’re gonna reap the whirlwind.
A smartphone is just better in every way imaginable. I also don’t have my phone hallucinating all the time either, so I have that going for me.
I’m also gonna say the obvious quiet part out loud: He’s black and they’re targeting him first. Not The Verge, not Engadget, him.
There are a lot of reasons in here about how bad reviews kill products, but I didn’t see mentioned how exceptional a product has to be to garner GOOD reviews. A business will get to the point of almost harassing you to leave a good review. In my experience people leave reviews when they are unhappy, and say nothing when they are satisfied.
An example of this was Teenage Engineering K.O. II EP-133 sampler. A bunch got released with broken fader knobs and the wave of bad reviews and complaints flooded in, drowning out the actual pros and cons of the device. T.E. isn’t exactly floundering from it, but in another circumstance that could have killed the product (which I find to be phenomenal).
Honest reviews prevent bad reviews from others and returns. They should be embraced for what they are and a blueprint for what you’ve done well and where there is room for improvement.
Absolutely. LinusTechTips had to issue a formal apology for dumb stuff someone had said about another reviewer, but in the unveiling of all their shit, it was revealed that they had mis-reviewed a gaming mouse.
The mouse was in prototype stages, and the LTT member that reviewed it did not take the plastic off the gliders and said that the mouse was horrible and dragged a lot. The company then floundered and had to sell the prototype and rights at auction at the next CES.
The worst part is that they assumed that a competent reviewer had the fucking common-ass sense to remove the plastic that… you know… comes on almost every gaming mouse, so they didn’t even dispute the issue.
Reviewer opinions on both Humane and Fisker are pretty consistently negative so this isn’t some mean YouTuber with an axe to grind situation.
The products are bad and people shouldn’t waste their hard earned money and time on them. Venture Capital firms may lose money, but that comes with the territory. Not every venture is a win.
Generally speaking true. However some companies manage to get the hype train going which leads to people buying bad products. As a result, a company can still survive by selling bad headphones or bad water bottles. Bad reviews can balance things a bit, but if their marketing budget is as big as the defense budget of a small country, there’s not much a bad review can do.
Obviously, this doesn’t really apply to small startups with only pennies to spend. Their marketing consists of sending samples to reviewers, and if that gamble backfires, for any reason, things aren’t going to look very good for the company. Maybe the product was bad, and they had it coming. Maybe the product was ok, but the review sample was broken. Who knows.
this is a perfect example of why @PhAzE should get posts downvoted and account banned of most major platforms (dont actually do this but see what i did there?)
Yes, my comment assumes the reviewers are being genuine. However, in a lot of cases, those people can be weeded out and themselves fail over time because they, too, are peddling bad products (reviews).
As long as they are truthful they only report on the quality of the product and prevent many people of spending a lot of money from losing it by buying something that doesn’t work.
Well, yeah sure. The problem is whether or not that’s actually what’s happening in any given circumstance. Most reviewers I’ve seen are more than happy to include personal opinion, and some will exagerrate points for the sake of getting views.
Things get even more fraught when the reviewer is a bigger company than the company whose product is being reviewed. For example the debacle with Linus Tech Tips and Billet labs that they were dragged for. That’s the kind of coverage that absolutely can sink a company that seemingly only ever did exactly what they said they would.
Reviews are good if they present the important facts and generally act with integrity, but sometimes that’s a really big ‘if’.
He makes a pretty good point near the end of the video where he claims that reviews are only a catalyst, and only speed up whatever trajectory the company is already on. Assuming that the reviews are honest and objective I agree with this point 100%.
Ultimately the quality of the product or service on offer steer the ship, the reviews are just the wind.
Reviewers aren’t (or really shouldn’t be) beholden to companies, the whole point of a review is to give an opinion on a product, and the less input into that the company has the happier I will be. At the same time, some reviewers do hold a lot of sway, and can strongly influence people’s opinions with their reviews, so there might be an argument that a negative review can impact sales. However, so what? If the reviewer is bringing up their concerns or issues with a product, that is the whole point of what they do, and their viewers will want to hear about those things (working on the assumption that people will tend to watch reviewers they think align with their own views), and would be pretty upset if they weren’t warned about the downsides prior to purchasing.
Shitty products get shittier reviews. One bad review, even if it is by a big influencer is not going to kill a company. If a company has all of their eggs in one shit filled basket, reviewers are going to point out the shit and the company is not going to sell its eggs.
MKBHD is pretty popular. His subscribers are probably the demographic that might be interested in this thing. So I’m sure his bad review has impact. But unless he’s a big outlier or has a personal axe to grind with the company it does not seem like there’s any ethical consideration to making such a harshly negative review. People should probably be more suspicious of the reviewers who don’t give the product a harsh review.
I think bad reviews can kill companies. If they are objective and honest, the review is not the core issue, the bad product is the issue.
But it is possible to have biased reviews, or dishonestly framed reviews. MKBHD is honest and objective, but you can’t take for granted that every reviewer is.
I saw a comment on a Patreon that someone got a free copy of…one of those dime a dozen boom shoots for his YouTube channel. He has about 500-1000 subs, and he’s getting a video game. He definitely didn’t like it, and was having to reconcile if he wanted to give it an honest review or tell the PR firm that the product wasn’t good. I feel like this push and pull is way too common.
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