Not a deal: YouTube reviews are *€@*"!

[Nick Blanc]

On 3/4/2024 at 11:03 PM, PavlovsCat said:

I watch and like his videos. And I definitely agree with your premise on the revenue model.  You're exactly right. If this is ever going to work, the compensation for these folks needs to come from the buying public, not the seller of the products being "reviewed"developer. I salute you for putting your money where your mouth is. 

Even so, the problem still exists that we're merely relying on the word and blind trust of the influencer that they're not accepting compensation and gifts from the companies who make the products that they review when they have no clear standards they're held to and no oversight in place. Whereas journalist reviewers of esteemed publications follow journalism principles and ethics  standards and have an editor who ensures accountability. I suppose I might be open to sponsoring a reviewer IF s/he he would sign an agreement with rules that s/he promised to abide by, such as not accepting anything of value from a company with a product being reviewed; that the even the review copy was not his/her property after the review was finished; that s/he fully abide by all government regulations; that there will be no discussions of potential future financial relationships or gifts with any of developers whose products are reviewed; and that any personal relationships with a developer or an employee of a developer must be fully and clearly disclosed (e.g., I'm dating the marketing manager). But even that takes blind trust that the influencer will abide by the agreement. Still, it beats where we're at today. 

While I agree Wietse seems pretty honest in his doings, even he slips up from time to time. And he does stand to gain from those so called non-funded reviews. We have a saying in the Netherlands which roughly translate to "only the sun comes up for free". It's used in a way that eventually everything either costs money/makes you money. Free plugin? They now have your email and name. Free chicken-spit for your new barbecue? Yeah you really want the motor with that. Sure I'll help you move, but we'll definitely need some beers when we're done.

He gains views, subscribers, customers. Does that make it a bad thing? Not necessarily. But let's be honest here, who has a dream of becoming a plug-in (or whatever else) reviewer? But still, doesn't make it a bad thing. Unless someone is not being honest. And boy is that prevalent.

[craigb]

On 3/4/2024 at 3:50 PM, Paul P said:

I've been on the net since before the beginning and only recently has google search become just about useless.

The short story:

Google has been not-so-quietly deleting vast areas of the internet.  There are many videos talking about this.  Try a search for something simple like "pizza" and it will reply with "About 2,830,000,000 results (0.46 seconds)" but will only show up to 500 results with many of those being repeated if they are sponsored!  Besides that, it will heavily favor results that match the agenda they (as part of the propaganda wing of our corrupt government) wants you to see.

The second reason (that many of us believe), is to prepare everyone to use their new AI as a replacement search engine similar to how Bing now does this.

The pendulum is just swinging towards a new extreme.  In the beginning of the internet, it was impossible to find anything and links took you places but you never knew how to get back (this is where the term "surfing the internet" first came from).  Then, for a time after decent search engines became the starting point for pretty much everyone, it became awesome!  Now, it's devolving into crapola, censorship and controlled information... ?

[craigb]

LOL!  Right at the end of my prior post, my entire computer shut down with a "CRITICAL PROCESS DIED" error! ?

I guess I'm not supposed to bag on Google, ya? ?

[PavlovsCat]

1 hour ago, Nick Blanc said:

While I agree Wietse seems pretty honest in his doings, even he slips up from time to time. And he does stand to gain from those so called non-funded reviews. We have a saying in the Netherlands which roughly translate to "only the sun comes up for free". It's used in a way that eventually everything either costs money/makes you money. Free plugin? They now have your email and name. Free chicken-spit for your new barbecue? Yeah you really want the motor with that. Sure I'll help you move, but we'll definitely need some beers when we're done.

He gains views, subscribers, customers. Does that make it a bad thing? Not necessarily. But let's be honest here, who has a dream of becoming a plug-in (or whatever else) reviewer? But still, doesn't make it a bad thing. Unless someone is not being honest. And boy is that prevalent.

All he has to do is disclose upfront what his financial relationship is with the developer for the products he's featuring. That's what I do if I decided I wanted to be an influencer in that space. 

Funny enough, I actually could be considered an influencer in my business and regularly get pitched to promote colleges and various businesses as a business "thought leader."(Of course, that's not as fun as being a musician.) And I recently did sign a few agreements with some companies and I turned down a ton of them over two decades of being pitched (I only accepted a contract last month; this is largely academia, in my case, with universities like Pinceton, Yale, UChicago, etc.). But I'll always operate by disclosing clearly upfront when I have a financial relationship with any business I discuss, not say I'm doing completely unbiased reviews. My rule is that I won't even discuss companies that I don't respect and educational institutions I wouldn't recommend for my own family members. And beyond that, whenever I discuss these relationships, I will always begin by being transparent and disclosing that I have a business relationship. That's all these influencers need to do, but they refuse to do it. That's not ethical and it violates laws and regulations -- but they don't care. 

If someone thinks when I say, "I find this business training from Yale is worth consideration," after I disclose that I have a business relationship that my opinion is incredibly biased and my credibility on that recommendation is suspect, that's their call. They deserve to be informed that I have a business relationship with a company that I have a business relationship with. Hiding that fact and pretending to do an unbiased review is incredibly sleazy and there's not enough money in the world to get me to do that. Think I'm kidding? I once got pitched a 7 figure deal to lead digital marketing by a famous -- now infamous -- billionaire who called me up after reading an interview with me in Wired or Forbes. His business was the biggest or one of the biggest payday loan companies in the US. Their business model is basically exploiting the poor to rip them off with outrageously high interest rates. The CEO actually boasted to me that they were getting interest rates of more than 1,000% off of these poor people (small loans, giant interest).  When I shared the story with an acquaintance he called me "nuts" for turning down the offer. He didn't even appreciate my self-depricating joke, "I'm Italian-American, I've already been a director in the insurance business, I can't go into loan-sharking next, I'll be fulfilling some kind of ugly stereotype of my people!" Three or four years later, I think this event vindicated me (spoiler, he got a 16 yr jail sentence; it turns out that he answered wrongly when I asked him, "Forget about the terrible ethics -- is charging those interest rates even legal?" He told me I was an "idiot" for turning down his offer and hung up the phone pretty ticked off at me and my candor in telling him that I value my soul more than money: 

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1EV00S/

So yeah, some of us draw lines. 

Edited March 6 by PavlovsCat

[craigb]

6 minutes ago, PavlovsCat said:

All he has to do is disclose upfront what his financial relationship is with the developer for the products he's featuring.

This basic honesty is needed in MANY areas of media!

[PavlovsCat]

33 minutes ago, craigb said:

This basic honesty is needed in MANY areas of media!

On a positive note, I think the BandLab folks to a great job of operating this forum at a high standard. I realize that probably sounds like I'm schmoozing them (as I'm posting it here), but seriously, people can post whatever they want to say about the brand and its products freely on this forum and their policies go a long way in keeping this forum from being dominated by developers promoting their products and instead making it very user-centric. As much as I call out the troubling state of influencer marketing which I find unethical and manipulative, this forum is, IIMO, a great example of a brand that has gone a long way to create a very healthy environment that promotes the free exchange of ideas, opinions and information. I just hope they'll make an announcement about their Sonar pricing soon!  

Edited March 6 by PavlovsCat

[craigb]

1 hour ago, craigb said:

LOL!  Right at the end of my prior post, my entire computer shut down with a "CRITICAL PROCESS DIED" error! ?

I guess I'm not supposed to bag on Google, ya? ?

You've got to be kidding me!

I just finished reviewing the Event Log for my system failure and the error that occurred right before the critical failure had a "source" of "googlehaxm!" ?

Say WHAT?????!!!!