"Saltlake58"If a reviewer must be completely independent, how would you propose that the reviewer fund their hobby that they make so much on? Guys like Ted have real jobs and real families. If you expect them to cater to completely inane requirements from armchair quarterbacks, you'll be sadly disappointed.
I for one, don't really care if Ted or other reviewers receive something for the reviews. They do us all a service by spending their time and effort in getting the material to review, and passing the information along to us.
Really, how do you really expect Ted to review an FX Impact ($1,899 at AOA) and a fancy scope ($500 range typically) on a normal human's budget (with family coming first I might add)
So far as I'm concerned, if you want to whine about the "Sales People" that get at most a pittance for reviewing this stuff, please expect negative comments coming right back at ya.
If you have constructive comments about the gun, scope, or other accouterments being reviewed, happy to listen.
Perhaps the disconnect is in what people view the purpose of a review to be. In my opinion, a review is someone spending time with a product and reporting on both it's good and bad points so they can advise us if it's something we should consider buying or avoiding completely. Part of the conclusion might be that, for the money, you would be better off considering some alternative products.
There was a time when professional reviewers worked for magazines or TV stations who paid their salaries and were funded through subscriptions or selling advertising etc. They were free to rate a product 9/10 or 4/10 based on it's merits and they did just that. For the publications I trusted, I used that info to help inform my buying decisions. I also avoided products that got bad reviews. If a magazine started only giving good reviews, I would have stopped buying it.
If you switch out that formulae to what we are talking about here, where retailers and manufacturers fund the presentation of one of their products with a view to increasing their sales and effectively censoring any negative messaging, I would call that an advertisement and not a review. I can no longer use the info to make purchasing decisions because they aren't able to tell me what they really think.
If a store sends "reviewer A" a Wildcat to review and he tells the public something like "this gun is ok but for the money you are better off buying a Vulcan or Mutant", that store will stop sending them product to review. That effectively censors the truth.
These days the importance of professional reviewers has diminished significantly for me. I no longer need to rely on them because, through the Internet, I have access to dozens or sometime hundreds or thousands of end user reviews through sites like this and others. I find tremendous value in reading the opinions of ten people just like me before I buy something. It's even better than the independent pro reviewers from the old days.
So how do I expect current pro reviewers to fund their hobby? I don't expect anything. I don't really need them. For every pro reviewer there is usually a bunch of amateurs who bought the product and can't wait to share their opinion. Isn't that half the value of sites like this?
That all seems fairly clear and logical to me. What I am not clear on is, for the people who don't think a review needs to be independent, what do you see as the purpose of the review?
The thing I am even less clear on is why, the fact that some people don't have blind unconditional love for whoever the persons favorite reviewer happens to be, seems to bother them so much? It seems like a silly thing to become "weary" over. I can't seem to find any strong feelings about the subject one way or the other.
To me, it's like listening to the "advise" of a sales associate in a clothes store. When they tell me I look great in the expensive one, I still ask for a mirror and my wife's opinion. That doesn't mean I have anything against the sales associate. I don't begrudge them making a living. I might even appreciate their help. It's just common sense to ask how someone is compensated and motivated before listening to their advise though. I believe that about all parts of life.
