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kylecazar 3 hours ago

A good reason to find specific individuals with relevant knowledge and follow their writing directly.

Think simonw and his pelicans... but there are lesser known trustworthy voices as well. It just takes some time to find them for a given area of interest.

Also bring back blogrolls.

autoexec 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> A good reason to find specific individuals with relevant knowledge and follow their writing directly.

As soon as they get popular enough they'll be approached with offers to shill in exchange for huge piles of money. That's the entire point of "influencers". Trusted people being turned into secret advertisers and billboards.

geerlingguy an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Not all are swayed.

The hard thing is finding which ones are, and which ones aren't.

I rely on a web of trust. When I see another new hot AI trend, I check it against whether any of the people I've followed via RSS or manually curated on Twitter, Mastodon, etc (many of whom I met IRL) have said anything about it.

There's still a an undercurrent of people blogging and posting and chatting who are trustworthy and haven't sold their soul to marketing. Or at least are clear when they say things that are marketing.

But it is ever harder to find those voices, especially if you're new to an industry.

cogman10 21 minutes ago | parent [-]

It's hard to express, but it seems the best way to sus-out who is a shill and who's authentic is by comparing across reviews for a product.

It's almost a bit like AI speak. The shills will all have very similar sounding content. They'll all hit on the same (ad copy) points. They might mix in a few negative tidbits, but generally speaking you'll catch them all praising the same wizbang features.

Mkbhd is my favorite baseline shill. He practically just reads the product sheet. You know if he says it, it was probably given to him by the person paying for the review and, indeed, you can find the points he brings up echoed in other people's reviews.

On the flip side, I generally trust Gamers Nexus to not shill. Primarily because their lack of playing ball has actually hurt their access.

I've enjoyed your videos as well. They don't come off as a shill particularly because there's a number of products where the negative points you've put out have been strong enough to actually discourage a purchase. They haven't been weak "The colors could pop more".

sph 2 minutes ago | parent [-]

> It's hard to express, but it seems the best way to sus-out who is a shill and who's authentic is by comparing across reviews for a product.

Brandolini’s law strikes again: you really have to pay attention to catch a shill. 99% of the time when you’re not paying attention and intentionally shopping for a particular product is when they get you.

2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]
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boxedemp 26 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Unless you're RMS

SyneRyder 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I agree, but I also think the point about "Is [your opinion] based on extensive experimentation and first hand experience" is really important. Relying on other bloggers is still delegating your thinking to others. Having your own objective measures and your own direct experience is useful, and sometimes it might contradict the prevailing wisdom.