Searching for product recommendations has become harder and harder over the years. I used to google or browse reddit for reviews, used them to create a shortlist of products and then actually dig deeper and compare them.

Lets say I’m in the market for a mechanical keyboard, but I don’t know much about them. I use whatever search engine to look for “best mechanical keyboard 2024”. The results are really bad, and I mean really bad. It’s more of a list of keyboards to avoid, to be honest. The problem is not just google. Bing, duckduckgo, Kagi, Startpage… all results suck. The results are filled with AI generated pages or outlets farming affiliate links. There are a couple of good suggestions in the middle of the garbage but if 9/10 websites recommend a random razer keyboard, I’m inclined to believe it’s an option worth considering.

Some of my friends say they resort to Youtube. I can agree that Youtube has amazing content creators that give amazing reviews and produce great quality content. But if you don’t know anything about the subject, how do you know which content creator is good and which content creator is just farming affiliate links?

One of the things I loved about Reddit was that I could just go to /r/whateversubject and talk to what I felt was real people discussing products they loved. I no longer use Reddit ,and Lemmy, unfortunately, doesn’t have a big enough userbase to have a good community for each type of product.

So, what’s your strategy to find out good products on subjects you know nothing about?

  • tun@lemm.ee
    1·
    5 months ago

    I use Vetted (previously lustre) to get information. Then find the reviews on YouTube.

    I also use WireCutter and Rtings.com for information collection.

  • zkfcfbzr@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    6 months ago

    Honestly, I still just google for relevant reddit threads. Lemmy’s the only place I actively participate in, but this is one of the use cases it hasn’t been able to replace reddit for for me either yet.

    • lemmyng@lemmy.caEnglish
      31·
      6 months ago

      Reddit has been astroturfed so much the recommendations there have to be taken with a lot of salt.

      • zkfcfbzr@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        6 months ago

        Sure, but it’s still a lot more reliable than something like the amazon review section, or a lengthy AI-generated article comparing the two products you just happened to google together that somehow manages to say nothing at all.

    • Mostly_Gristle@lemmy.world
      1·
      6 months ago

      Same for me too. Reddit, for all its other faults, is still just about the only place you can still get candid opinions on products in a place where it’s discussed by a large group with a deep knowledge base. Especially with niche things like fountain pens, goodyear-welted boots, and stuff like that.

      Not sure how long that’s going to last though. The search engines are already hip to that trick, and even in just the last few months I’ve noticed a change in how many Reddit links I get vs product links when I add Reddit to my search query. Reddit is hip to it too, and with recently becoming a publicly traded corporation they’re probably going to wring every last cent out of that until every post mentioning a product is a bot-infested sewage fire like everything else.

  • sailingbythelee@lemmy.world
    1·
    6 months ago

    One thing I haven’t seen mentioned yet is Consumer Reports. Consumer Reports is a membership-based non-profit that has been around since 1936. They are funded by membership dues, donations, and some corporate partnerships (mostly for research projects, I think). Their mission is to create unbiased reviews.

    They do well reviewing large purchases like appliances. They also review consumer electronics and some software, though not in the highly technical way of a site like Tom’s Hardware.

    Anyway, Consumer Reports isn’t perfect or entirely comprehensive, but the $40 per year membership pays for itself if you are a homeowner. Just in the last couple of months, they saved me $500 by directing me to a less expensive dishwasher than I otherwise would have bought.

  • pHr34kY@lemmy.world
    0·
    6 months ago

    Don’t search for reviews. Search for forum posts where users are having issues. “[Product] + [not working/failed/broken]” gets you an idea of what the product is like to live with, and now quickly issues get resolved.

      • Lmaydev@programming.dev
        1·
        6 months ago

        The problem is most people only post when they do have issues or they give everything 5 stars if it’s as expected.

        I find ignoring 1 and 5 star reviews helps with this issue.