New York Times' Wirecutter Product-Review Site Moves Behind Paywall (wsj.com) 40
The New York Times plans to put its consumer product-review site Wirecutter behind a paywall as the publisher looks to further diversify its subscription business beyond its flagship news product. From a report: Starting Wednesday, readers can purchase a stand-alone Wirecutter subscription for $5 every four weeks, or $40 annually. Those who already pay for the Times' premium digital subscriptions or home delivery will continue to get unlimited access to Wirecutter, with no change to the subscription's price. The Times, in its digital incarnation, is seeking to serve some auxiliary needs that traditional print newspapers once served, including by providing recipes and games and by helping users decide what products to buy, said David Perpich, head of the Times' stand-alone products group. Wirecutter, which the Times Company bought in 2016, is a consumer guide that reviews everything from cable modems to cat litter.
So much for Wirecutter (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So much for Wirecutter (Score:5, Insightful)
Wirecutter reviews aren't bad, but they're not special enough to pay for. The irritating thing about them is that they pick just one product to hype as the "best." Often that product doesn't have the features I'm looking for, but they don't really give a broad overview of what's available. I'd much rather go to specialist sites that really know the product category in question.
Re:So much for Wirecutter (Score:4, Interesting)
I have literally never bought a top pick from the Wirecutter and been happy with it. Headphones, kitchen goods, small appliances, nothing.
It's not that the site is bad, it's just that they seem to consistently make really bad long-term picks. You can (or could) see it in the comments section, where people would frequently come back a year or two later and say that the thing the Wirecutter recommended was a dud, and then complain that the review had never been updated after it had been acknowledged that the pick was bad.
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That more than likely wouldn't qualify for a dishonorable discharge. A dishonorable discharge is usually accompanied by a life or death sentence, and is usually issued for something along the lines of treason. Murder can land a bad conduct discharge depending on severity. This case would be assault, which if any kind of discharge was involved, it would be a "general under honorable conditions" discharge, though a discharge of any type is unlikely. It would probably be nonjudicial punishment, probably a fiel
Is that their usual ... (Score:5, Informative)
...just click reader-mode and refresh 'paywall'?
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Or you can just use the Bypass Paywalls extension for firefox. It really is seamless.
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Or you can just use the Bypass Paywalls extension for firefox. It really is seamless.
Why add another extension? Firefox can do this by changing a few privacy settings.
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Cookies? I use Ctrl+A and Ctrl+C before the overlay comes up.
See, there are many, many ways around it. Slashdot appears to have really lost its edge.
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Well, now I'm interested in the cookies route. Is clearing them all it takes?
Yup. In most desktop browsers you can delete them by site. You can also block them from a specific site.
Mobile browsers are a different situation unfortunately. Most seem to be all or nothing with regards to cookies. However, you can use an ad-blocker to accomplish the same thing.
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Dumb (Score:5, Insightful)
Consumer Reports is already $40 for a year and they are much more thorough and in my opinion a better trusted source than Wirecutter. Wirecutter is fine but not $40 a year fine. They seem more easily swayed by trends and due to that sometimes they just have some straight up bad takes and advice.
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I do find it super odd to put a site like The Wirecutter behind a paywall. I have been a subscriber to NYT and Consumer Reports for a while and I have actually been considering cancelling my CR subscription for a while. A lot of random consumer stuff I used to look up in CR they don't review anymore and comparing The Wirecutter vs CR they seem to be a lot more insensitive to price than they used to be. I do like CR for cars but I don't buy a car that often that I need a subscription for that.
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If you are paying $40/yr for consumer reports in the US, you are being ripped off. They only charge me $26/year, in continental US.
On the other hand, Consumer Reports reviews of most items are also garbage, since they are targeted mainly to know-nothing nouveau-riche. Why should I care which $1000 vacuum cleaner is best?
FWIW (Score:4, Insightful)
An initial 12 month subscription to the NY Times costs about $5.99 a month, which includes Wirecutter.
The subscription rate escalates after the first anniversary, if you fail to cancel.
Negative Value (Score:1)
An initial 12 month subscription to the NY Times costs about $5.99 a month, which includes Wirecutter.
I might go for that if they paid me, probably $50 a month with the stipulation I was required to read no more than an hour a month of either NYT or Wirecutter content combined.
Good luck (Score:3)
Good luck with an affiliate marketing site that you have to pay to view.
Bye, Wirecutter. There were some categories of products you were pretty good at. I guess I'll have to get my reviews somewhere else.
Super - LOL (Score:4, Interesting)
Posting reliable reviews costs about $25/hr for let's say 4 hours per product.
That's $100/review.
If you can't monetize $100 over 1 Million hits, well, I guess there's a problem.
Personally, I liked Wirecutter, but not exclusively. There are plenty of other places to go for reliable reviews.
I'm not paying $40/yr - which equates to about $5 per view at most. That's a stupid price for somebody's opinion on a $200 (average) object.
Still there? (Score:2)
The New York Times still has a website? Who knew?
Wrong title. (Score:2)
Paywalled Site Rips Other Paywalled Site For Moving Feature Behind Paywall
Hmm... funny how that works out.
Someone else will cover the story (Score:2)
If it's anything worth reading, then get it from another outlet. If the link says nytimes, I don't even click on it anymore.
Get a Galil (Score:2)
The Israeli Galil assault rifle comes with a wirecutter in the bipod.
Conflict of Interest - Reviews Vs Ad revenue (Score:2)
Name (Score:2)
Why is it called "Wirecutters"? The wikipedia page doesn't say anything about their name. I've never knowingly used this site, and assumed they're about moving people from landlines and cable to mobile and satellite TV, apparently it's not what they do
Just the final nail in the coffin. (Score:2)
But since NYT acquired them and the scope of their coverage blew up the info wasn't being kept up to date as it once was and the articles started to sound more and more like reviews taken from the info handed out by PR flacks and less like the hardcore real-world testing they once did. In the last few years I've been taking
I don't really know (Score:2)
how that's supposed to work in general. I mean, I guess it's supposed to boost subscriptions to the NY Times? But who needs that thing on a regular basis - you only want reviews when you want to buy something.
Not really seeing how this helps profits any.