The only thing close to workable that I can think of (assuming a reviewer was going to INSIST on affiliate links) would be to establish themself first as a trusted source of reviews and then eventually drop a link that led to a page where there was an affiliate link to every single product they had ever reviewed, including the ones that clearly had reviews calling the product absolute trash. If they could summon the fortitude to continue refusing free samples from vendors, buying all their own products to review, and continue to drop opinions that reflected reality...and then followed that up with "If you want to help me afford dinner, and you insist on buying something I have said is trash, here's a link where you can do so." Still...I agree with you in general. I have trouble thinking of a type of product where this just isn't a problem. Maybe caskets....maybe I'll start a channel reviewing caskets. Even if the product is junk, it's not like you'll care.
@@jasondean88888camera conspiracies puts affiliate links for everything and still is usually brutally negative about everything to the point he makes a joke out of it. Like “this is terrible. Affiliate links below”
Funny to me that people are still asking for more videos again. One of the major reasons I quit is exactly due to the extreme affiliate link spam addiction of "reviewers" of today. It felt like I was unable to gain actual trust from my audience considering their expectation of the worst by default, so there wasn't much of a point. Final nail in the coffin was naturally the LCD-1 review. That's when I saw what people really thought at large, after being one of the first to review it after receiving a pre release loaner sample, and then returning it to the manufacturer afterwards with zero payment. I actually put in an order for one from my local dealer to buy it with my own money..aaaaaand then I heard the Sundara with revised pads, and canceled that order lol. But the writing was on the wall after seeing that severe negative reaction while doing everything I could and being doubted every step of the way from that point on. No, never again. Maybe an occasional stream, but reviewing? Lol, no. Crin and Resolve are SAINTS for continuing to do what they do.
It's really rough to see you growing so big and then getting your progress set back down. Been following you since just before you hit 10k and the growth and rate of growth was incredible to see, here's hoping you get your channel back, but if you don't, best of luck with the new channel.
Very good discussion about affiliate links and reviewers. I don’t agree on 100% of the points, but I do think you raise some valid concerns and it certainly does make me think. Well done Crin.
@@shayan-gg I disagree in the sense that the inclusion of affiliate links is inherently bad and will lead to misleading reviews for the sake of increasing sales. I have shit all over products and still included affiliate links to those products, why? Because I know people disagree with me. I include as many audio samples as I can so people researching are able to hear the real world examples, and while I’m doing those tests I am typically not including my opinion. This way the person watching/listening can develop their own opinion without me influencing it. Then if those tests help them make a decision to buy a product they can use the affiliate link. If they do want to hear my opinion, they can keep watching the conclusion though. On top of that I refuse to do this full time for multiple reasons, and one of them is I have seen people go full time and that alters their relationship to content and how they approach reviews. By not being reliant on the income from youtube/affiliates, I can do whatever I want without concern for how it impacts the income because I still have a job. So my stance is really that I think the topic is more nuanced and I disagree with the idea that affiliate links are inherently bad. But I am someone who uses affiliate links so that could be me doing backflips to justify it. I would never expect anyone to trust anything I do or so. I have to earn every ounce of trust/respect/etc. If someone believes that my use of affiliate marketing or my receipt of a product to demo makes me an untrustworthy source, I might disagree, but I understand that’s their opinion and that is them trying to make the most informed decision. I don’ think that was a well formulated response, but now I need to get back to putting numbers in excel. My break is over.
I think same thing kind of applies to reviewers getting products from the manufacturers directly. Even if they are not intentionally misleading, I feel like it would make them pull their punches when it comes to reviewing. I see some smart Microphone brands who send review units to very small youtube channels also, that way I feel like they get a lot of marketing and the smaller channels are more inclined to make a positive review
By the way when are you going to start reviewing headphones. Don't you get bored with microphones that all sound much the same. Don't you get bored saying " please bring pizza pronto"?
Thanks for raising this issue in such an eloquent manner. The "you don't know that" aspect is the key piece to this in my view. The affiliate link feedback loop doesn't necessarily entail dishonesty, nor does it require that the reviewer gloss over the issues, but the audience can't be confident it's not happening - especially without long-term familiarity with the reviewer. Moreover, I tend to view this as part of an even larger problem when it comes to the default relationship we have to information. It feels impossible to communicate a nuanced position on something when the expectation is either "it's the greatest thing ever" or "it's shit". It's as though 'spin' is a requirement for everything because we aren't willing to have that internal dialogue or decision making to come to our own conclusions on a given piece of information, almost as if perceived personal value comes from the hype that others have conferred upon something - whether incentive-driven or otherwise. This is a bit of a weird one but, at the moment I'm not opposed to affiliate links in practice SOME of the time, given examples of when they're used innocuously, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't opposed to them in principle, and I think their widespread use has been a net negative overall.
Most people that have been in this hobby for a while can see through all the shills like a pain of glass. I just feel sorry for the ones that get sucked in by the hype vacume...
Or you could bypass this issue completely by suggesting that every pair of high end headphones can be EQ'd to your physiology/sonic preferences despite the fact that you're influencing/degrading the very subtle technicalities that said high end headphones were designed to reproduce....then folks could buy any pair of high end headphones from your shop worry-free without regard to tuning, right?
A really eye opening topic to think about. Doubt really does raised when a reviewer is affiliated with a product. Some big UA-camr impression of a product really does go out of the window when the product is plastered on the name of the certain influencer. I really like to watch this one reviewer but it's been a promo video instead of reviewing the product itself
I’ve seen this in the Speaker market when I was shopping for a setup. I could not find a bad review nor a single review where I was told not to buy something. It was always “it’s a little bright/neutral/warm/tight bass/etc so look into it if that’s your thing.” Like in my mind I’m thinking every speaker reviewer wants to keep getting review samples to keep doing their thing; but if everything is worth buying and they always affiliate link it, wtf do I need to watch their reviews?
Tbf audio is extremely subjective so part of that could just be people trying to remove their own bias, because we’ve all come across a headphone or something that sounds like shit to us when other people love it. But a lot is probably also greed
Personally, I worry more about companies giving out free or review units. For smaller reviewers, they may feel like they have to be positive so they can continue to get the free units for review which drives their content creation. Since they can't afford to buy all the new units, getting cut off means no more content and no more revenue. When it becomes your job, your integrity is much more important and can either purchase the products yourself, or get access to them through other means if you were blacklisted for giving a bad review.
It's even a problem with big creators which I've especially seen in smartphone content. Reviewers are told what they can comment on, when to post reviews and even told to make multiple videos. If a reviewer can't say all of their thoughts right when they get the product, what's the point of the review?
@@monikafiori Same in gaming laptops. You see a guy like Dave2D with a mountain of ASUS laptops on his table that the company just sends him and I'm like, yeah this is going to be a positive video. And yeah Marques Brownlee will do a review for one phone, but then he pulls out ten other phones and I'm like "oh you got to keep all of those huh?"
Yeah that's a huge issue. Gamers nexus is blacklisted by many people in the tech world because he's brutally honest. He was so honest he forced others to be more honest because everyone would cross reference reviews with his. Every field needs a gamers nexus and the people need to support them
@@monikafiori ok to be fair the part "when to release review" is not really a bad thing that harms review integrity. Its just how the business work, they sign nda to not release their review before the agreed time by the manufacturer (commonly known as embargo time). A few thing that are beneficial is, reviewers dont need to compete to release the fastest video compared to their peers, and also if there is anything wrong with how the manufacturer intended the product or soemthing else during the review process they can delay the product release, send a replacement and its not as harmful to both side reputation, one releasing a sloppy product and one making a will-be-irrelevant video that will be seen as biased compared to actual product (if they dont take down the vid).
We could extend this discussion to your collaborations with different IEM manufacturers too. You have money to gain from reviewing competitors to your collaboration IEMs worse than you might review them normally. I agree reviewers should be seperating their financial gains from the realm of prodcuts they review. Case in point: Don't just buy dusk... think before buying dusk :D
This a good point, you can minimize but never eliminate this conflict of interest.... However as long as crin discloses this to his audience, people are given the proper information to make an educated purchasing decision.
Good point. So is crin really free to review another product of a manufacture he had a collab with? It's not as bad as affiliate links but some of his income is also by those manufactures.
But he can't review competitor IEMs "worse" because there's nothing to compare against because doesn't review his own products. If IEM A is a direct competitor to dusk and Crin says IEM A sucks, that doesn't even imply that customers should buy dusk instead because I'm pretty sure he has said he wouldn't promote his collabs that way. And he has no incentive to positively review other products of companies he collabs with because he only earns money from his specific collab products.
@@otakupetrolhead1392 Yes he didn’t review or even mentions his collab iems in any of his videos (which is definitely the right way to do it), but that still doesn’t free him from influence. Let’s take a practical example, his 7hz timeless review. in which he mentions by name the blessing 2 as the only alternative/competing iem to the timeless. sure he didn’t mention the dusk specifically, but given we are watching a crin video that is, in a way, implied. Also either way he recommended only one competing iem, which was the one made by the company with which he has a working relationship. Does that prove any bias on his part? No, but it also doesn’t disprove it. Which is the entire point of this video, don’t just blindly trust reviewers.
Oh God, I never thought about that but I have seen so many audio reviwers, with high number of subs having affiliate links of the product which they've reviewed in the video.
Actually that's why I like Dankpods, he might not be the most knowledgeable on audiophile gear, but he talks about stuff he's bought, with honesty. But then Meze stole his heart lol, I don't blame him. I also like small companies hand-building stuff with passion, and I'd love them more if they sent me super-expensive headphones.
It's this kind of problem that made me to look up for other sources (various review sites, reddit, reviews on e-shops, etc.) to decide whether the certain product is actually good. No matter how much positivity a reviewer crams into a product, I still have doubts and will search up as much as I can until I finally reached the final conclusion regarding my choice.
While I agree that affiliate links can be an issue, we can clearly see the difference of approach from a reviewer to another. I believe the bias goes beyond that. How much do you like a brand and how much you will be forgiving. We see the same behavior in the forums where people will jump on the hype train and defend their favorite brands, then switch to the next product and so on. We all have bias and especially in this hobby, we are free to disagree with the opinion or preferences. More than affiliate links or not, the goal is to find a reviewer you share most of the audio taste.
I believe this topic applies to collabing with manufacturers as well. You cannot expect the audience to look at a product the same way they do before knowing a collaboration exists. Regardless of publishing a negative review or asking to avoid buying the product, just having your name on its cover will build up a conscious (or subconscious) trust in the user and encourage them to buy it. Any kind of money making acts beside the reviews will eliminate the 100% pure unbiased performance and it's undeniable.
I’ve been reviewing stuff since 2009 and made hundreds of reviews. There’s definitely some conflict of interest with affiliate links. My advice to reviewers is to think of what happens when you put out an unbalanced review. The company is the one that benefits. Your audience won’t get the whole picture, may buy the product to find out that it sucks (happened to me), and come back to complain on your channel, indefinitely into the future. You may earn a few dollars but at the expense of your reputation and credibility which is worth so much more. So no one benefits except the company. For my reviews, I just present my findings. If the product sucks, too bad, I’ve got to say it sucks otherwise it’s my audience who’s gonna waste their money, and they will come back to complain. But ultimately I will make sure the review is balanced. And I welcome people who say I’m biased to so say where I’m biased. I put affiliate links also to point people to check out more reviews on Amazon. Whether they buy is not important, but if they want to buy then I want to make sure they know exactly why they can expect from the product.
I remember Ranton making a similar critique of game reviewers, where he mentions how there is an ever so slight bias a reviewer will have if he's given a review copy of a game for free vs if he bought the game himself.
Its allways a blessing watching a video from an audiophile cause their audio quality is always pretty decent. I've never seen anyone with a really shitty mic or etc. Love you crin
Any chance you can look into Samsung phones' Adapt Sound feature? It plays beeps, you answer whether you can hear them, and it's supposed to boost the weak frequencies. I'd love to see this professionally tested.
small change channels like mine don't have sponsors and make nothing on ads. I use affiliate links but I also make very little cash with that. Nevertheless, I still provide the affiliate links when I trash a piece of gear, because viewers may still think "fuck off, I'm buying those klipsh anyway". And then they buy them without using my link. They don't work, really.
You raise a lot of valid points. We're not in complete agreement here but this conversation gives me a lot of food for thought and I am thankful to you for that. At the end of the day we all have to decide where we draw the line when it comes to monetizing our traffic and audience. Excellent video Crin!
Yeah hard disagree for me as well. I think: 1. Viewers aren't stupid - they see through biases easily. You can fool some of the people some of the time etc 2. No one is 'truly' objective. 3. Early access / free samples are easily a bigger biasing factor than affiliate links 4. What about being sponsored by audio companies? No one reviewing audio products should have anything on their channel sponsored by those companies.
Thank you for bringing up the topic in a reasonable manner. One thing that everyone who talks about this forgets: Affiliate links only pay out *if the product is not returned*. So, if you don't point out the negatives of a product, you'll quickly lose reputation, not just with viewers, but with companies that you are affiliate links with, as they will have to deal with large numbers of returns, and you wont make any money. It's even possible to have a negative Amazon affiliate balance. So, any reviewer with sense will only want people will enjoy a product to buy it. But heck, if I wanted to just make money, I'd post dozens of "Best 10" or "Top 5" videos full of links, or strap a camera to my head and... you know the rest. I agree with Resolve in that some people expect you to say a product is either great or crap. The reality is that some things that people think are crap, other people think are great. The challenge in reviewing is giving enough information that people can make a decision based on their own preferences, irrespective of anything else.
Great points well said. Can't tell how many times I see Amazon users saying "ignore the UA-cam reviewers hype! This thing sucks!" Lol Ime after a short time buying stuff and comparing to reviews, you start to see which reviewers are in it for the cash.
I think it‘s more a problem of only linking to amazon or shops that offer affiliate programs, even if the price or service is maybe worse than on smaller sites/sites that don‘t have these programs
Very important topic considering a lot of audio reviewers were "in the industry" before (meaning salesman of some kind). People usually repeat the model that they understand or works for them.
Ehhhhhhhhhh... There are lots of potentially meaningful conflicts of interest opinion-givers navigate: Affiliate links, advertising deals, "brand friendliness" requirements, matching audience expectations / tribal identity (especially RE: politics, patronage), personal identity / brand, free review products, BOUGHT review products (people want to justify their purchases), relationships with people in the business, paid travel for events, discomfort of being alone in unpopular opinions, selling competing products, being employed by a retailer, etc. I'm not skeptical that each of these can influence given opinions away from honesty, but I am skeptical that affiliate links are uniquely influential. As a consumer of reviews, consider the potential influence of any and all interests at play, demand transparency, and use reputation heuristics and your own credibility radar to evaluate the honesty of an opinion. IMO, using any of these conflicting interests as a binary flag for deciding to trust / distrust an opinion will not be particularly useful. Reputation and track record are harder things to evaluate, but I personally find them infinitely more useful indicators of honesty. And a reviewer's desire to build a valuable reputation and track record is, I find, exactly the counter to the potentially dishonest influence of non-platonic interests of people. Disclosure: I include affiliate links in roughly half my videos, which let me buy more things to review without my wife looking at me side-eyed. For anyone looking to maximize their own affiliate revenue, chifi is not the way -- cheap Bluetooth earbuds, iPhones, and other name brands drive way more sales on UA-cam.
In a nutshell look for several sources who you develop trust in through (i) their opinion resonating with yours for subjects you know about (even if they have different sound signature preferences) (ii) their being consistent - there aren't big leaps in sound quality every 6 months let alone every week (tho maybe features) and (iii) their referencing empirical evidence like sound demos and FR graphs.
Really sucks that you lost access to your account. Wishing you luck on that, and commenting in case you can't so the algorithm sends your new channel back out to everyone.
Thank you for this. UA-cam reviewers have been terrible lately. I'm mainly a smartphone hobbyist/collector (and recently IEM's lol) and it's hard to find good smartphone reviewers. I want a review, not a commercial.
Great topic for discussion. Personally, I am less concerned about affiliate links than other sources of bias although I feel that any time that a reviewer posts an affiliate link, they should disclose that they are getting a cut. One of the biases that I have a difficult time with is when people have personal or business relationships with individuals who produce these products. Crin's collaboration IEMs are a great example of this. To Crin's credit he abstains from reviewing them, but many of the other reviewers are reviewing them and it will be difficult for them to be objective because they know him. Not that I think that they would lie, but bias is sneaky and can affect people unconsciously. The same thing happens with Modhouse and ZMF products because so many reviewers seem to be on a first-name basis with the people behind those products. It's just so natural and feels so powerful to not want to drag a friend's work publicly. I think with any review, it's important to take note that it's impossible to remove all bias and getting a variety of perspectives will help, but even that is not perfect.
Thank you very much for this video, well said. The other thing going on with part-time reviewers who rely on free or heavily discounted products for their reviews is the feedback loop between the companies providing those products who prefer positive reviews since it will increase their sales and have been known to cut off reviewers from future free/discount products if a reviewer posts a negative review. A lot of amateur reviewers will preface their reviews with a personal statement about their ability to be objective regardless of how they received their product. I'm sure most of them are being honest and many believe they are being objective and not being affected, but as readers we never know if the Dunning-Kruger effect is happening and the reviewer is being biased without realizing it. The only way we know as readers is if the review contains objective data that can't be affected by a reviewers opinion and we rely primarily on that and/or the reviewer wouldn't be negatively impacted if they stopped getting free/discounted products because they generate income from other means (such as sponsorships, Patreon, etc.) that would allow them to obtain products for review regardless of whether a company discounts or gives them products or not.
Something I'm glad you mentioned in this video to reviewers who think they're being fair regardless of affiliat links: *You don't know* how much it's biasing your view. If there's a part of your brain that's aware that more sales of the product is good for you, then when running into issues, another part of your brain will be more forgiving or sensitive to it *without the person even realizing it.* It's the difference between a neighbour getting drunk and being an idiot vs your friend doing the same. You will not judge your friend as harshly as a random neighbour for the same bad behaviour, and you wouldn't even be aware of the bias unless it was made obvious. We are all hypocrites in many ways - reviewers are no different. But since this bias isn't obvious, it allows them to carry on while still believing they're one of the "good honest reviewers". It's a method of cognitive dissonance
I think that most of this is just common sense! This is something we all have to deal with in every video we watch, every ad or article we read, every salesperson we deal with in real life.....
I agree with everything you said crin Just look at the smartphone industry; every year we are losing another feature, stagnation is everywhere. On the laptop market however there's an amazing competition; we have 12mm gaming tablets that uses a f@cking intel in chip! A reviewer should be a middle man between the customers and manufacturers. I'm thinking about starting to post some reviews and I've been thinking about this topic for a very long time.
It can be very difficult to find truly unbiased reviews, seeing these links in the discription has become something that had started to bug me because I never know how true the review is. I recently bought a microphone, but was only able to find one single review that didn’t have an affiliate link, was quite annoying for finding truly unbiased reviews
That, somehow, killed some forums of different hobbies. The more administrators had connections to the manufacturers or companies about their hobbies, the more they would receive privileges, access or so. Then moderators were chosen if they had the correct thinking. The popularity of UA-camrs in part could be because opinion is independent, but once they get into communities of like-minded individuals, or a donating audience then there are like natural boundaries. As you say a balance could be achieved to not pass that salesman threshold.
Definitely agree here! How can a review be 100% truthful or uncolored if the item was given freely or if it's connected to an affiliate link. Even if the review is actually truthful - it doesn't change the fact that the perception of that reviewer has changed. A person who buys something with their own money with nothing to gain or lose by telling the truth is more likely to tell the truth - or is most definitely perceived as such. Whereas with the latter - they risk losing future business with that particular company or with others - if they are too harsh with the review.
This is very real but also goes for reviewer early access to free review units on premium products that you can't fund yourself so easily. It creates a dependency on a good relationship with big parties in the industry to assure you have enough content. Added to this affiliate links topic there are multiple incentives to keep reviews positive. This is especially apparent for people reviewing expensive hifi stuff but also goes for for instance game journalism and the car industry.
I don't know the inner workings of affiliate links, but why would a reviewer with any integrity post a link to products they don't stand behind 100%? Also, not trying to confront you Crin, but what's the difference between shilling your own product vs posting affiliate links? Doesn't being bias or not go out the window then? I'm genuinely interested. Cool content! Subbed!
Affiliate links every video, then 'garage sales' where his Patrons can buy things he bought with their money already, and there's no way on earth he's reviewing the things people actually want to see or are asking for in the Patreon discussions because he'll take ages getting around to a new headphone nobody has reviewed made by a big name in audio to instead shill some random chinese bluetooth tube amp off Amazon. But i mean i'm sure everything sounds good from a mansion basement in a leather cinema recliner.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. This is the exact thing I noticed myself. I know a pair of headphones is bad or mediocre because I've tested them myself. But the majority of reviews are super positive, touting them as the second coming of Christ. And it's not just the small websites, some of the bigger ones do it too. Right, Wirec... . You get to question what kind of deals they have behind the scenes. They're probably making a lot of money though. Unfortunately, it gives a bad rep to all the reviewers. You just have to work hard on your reputation.
i think this issue is reaaaaally apparent on pc hardware channels - we've just gone through the xmas (i.e. spending) period and as we got closer to xmas, it seemed like every video is a top 10 keyboard/gaming mouse/headset/etc with 10 affiliate links
If I was in this situation, I would consider not using affiliate links for individual reviews but if I made a headphone recommendation video, I wouldn’t mind using affiliate links because I’d be choosing multiple headphones that I already like
I'm new to audiophile headphones and reviewers and appreciate the work in you are putting in. Your comedy, content and sound quality are great . Hope you get your channel back . I don't mind to much conflict of interest long as there honest but the issue is integrity and falling behind as this money could be put into the channel limiting potential audience . Ps look forward to a review of possible on Kph40 or 30i to check what others have said as always looking for that Budjet king that looks ok out and about . Did get some ksc 75 but a bit shouty low bass for my taste. I'm surprised koss never approached you. Might consider some zex pro but I know you want give it a mark plus I prefer a headset
Thanks for sharing. My biggest beef with reviewers is that some are just copy cats. It is hard to find good reviews to discuss pros and cons without just listing what everyone is saying. Custom content is hard to find.
great video. this is clearly a very big problem which is hardly addressed, so im glad to see someone like you speak up about it. good luck in getting your old account back. sucks soo much to see all of those milestones go down the drain
Crin when you said "sponsor should not affect how you review" I had such a horrible flashback because back in my writing days a certain A company that sells motherboards and laptops would stop paying us if we were to say any downsides to the product. Literally, I couldn't say aa single bad thing or I'd lose my job at the media company. The laptop/tablet thing was full of issues and not a single upside Guess what? I quit.
Great and important video. However, has there been a review of those Genelec monitors? I'd be very interested to get Crin's perspective on studio monitors vs. headphones/iems for desktop usage.
Great topic, thanks for or covering it!! On a different but similar story, there is reviewers I follow in different industry’s that wont take loaners, they buy at full price everything they review. I value that a lot!!!
Speaking of ads affecting reviews, i was referencing your IEM list yesterday and your Adsense ad made it so I couldnt see the entire right side of the list due to my screen size. Just thought I’d let you know.
This is interesting… because actually, crinacle’s own reviews are actually “tainted” or “marred” with the same credibility problem introduced by affiliate links, but in his case the source and scope of impact are different. In crinacle’s case, the credibility issue is introduced by his IEM collaborations and the scope of impact is on any negative comment or criticism he has for anything he reviews. Here’s how that works. With regards to his positive reviews, crinacle’s word is reliable as his standards remain ever stringent, even when he has his IEM collaborations to sell. HOWEVER, when crinacle says something negative about any IEM, how sure can one be that the negative comment or criticism is not somehow in his interest in people buying his collaboration IEMs over others? Think about it. Now, of course he refrains from being a salesman for his IEMs in refraining from reviewing his own IEMs and reminding people to read his articles on them as ads. However, every negative comment on any other IEM indirectly will funnel sales to his IEMs. How? The reader’s thought is, well, if crinacle repudiates this kind of sound, what sound would he approve of or endorse? Enter the collaboration IEMs. Still, this video gives a good discussion regarding the effect of reviewer activities on their credibility.
I'm more willing to accept Crinacle's collaborations because he continues to criticize the companies he has collaborated with as well as their products. Sennheiser sponsored his 100K-subscriber giveaway on his previous channel, but all his scathing criticisms of their previous headphones remain on their site, and in his recent review of a Sennheiser IEM, he talked about how terrible some of their older IEMs are. He also went on to cut ties with KZ after learning that some of the drivers in their "multi-driver" IEMs were tuned such that their impact on the sound was negligible at best; he also continues to criticize the majority of their lineup for being samey-sounding. But I think this points to the primary disagreement I have with Crin on the subject: working with companies is not the same thing as shilling for them. Affiliate links are not inherently bad or compromising, even in a review setting. What matters are the ethics and motivations of the person or people using them. I've seen reviewers on UA-cam harshly criticize mediocre, crappy products, but they still include affiliate links to them because, hey, if someone still wants to buy this shit, might as well have an affiliate link. There isn't one singular thing that lets you tell whether someone is a reviewer or a fake reviewer. You have to look at it comprehensively.
I think we're always finding excuses to justify a new purchase. Even if we've purchased something recently. For this reason, we are attracted to "hype" (or sellers). They give us "objective" reasons to convince ourselves that it is worth it. Most of the times, however, it is not. I think it's too easy to blame the reviewers/sellers when the whole audience is desperately demanding them (plus the hype they bring).
I dont think I've ever bought something through an affiliate link in all my years on the internet. If something sounds good, just search for other takes on the product and find it organically. My reasoning for never using affiliate links is exactly for the reasons you so eloquently explained, so I won't rehash them here.
One of the ways to solve this problem is to make a video for the comparison of two or more products on the same price range and putting the affiliate links for each one. Whatever the viewers pick, you will earn a cut.
"But crinacle, what about YOUR problems?"
ua-cam.com/video/n69THTIrmWI/v-deo.html
The only thing close to workable that I can think of (assuming a reviewer was going to INSIST on affiliate links) would be to establish themself first as a trusted source of reviews and then eventually drop a link that led to a page where there was an affiliate link to every single product they had ever reviewed, including the ones that clearly had reviews calling the product absolute trash. If they could summon the fortitude to continue refusing free samples from vendors, buying all their own products to review, and continue to drop opinions that reflected reality...and then followed that up with "If you want to help me afford dinner, and you insist on buying something I have said is trash, here's a link where you can do so."
Still...I agree with you in general. I have trouble thinking of a type of product where this just isn't a problem.
Maybe caskets....maybe I'll start a channel reviewing caskets. Even if the product is junk, it's not like you'll care.
@@jasondean88888camera conspiracies puts affiliate links for everything and still is usually brutally negative about everything to the point he makes a joke out of it. Like “this is terrible. Affiliate links below”
Incredibly important topic that doesn't get discussed in a serious manner often enough. Thank you
yo its the guy I always see on twitter
I wish he was also the guy I always see in new UA-cam videos ;)
Miss your videos metal, you and crinacle here are one of the few that gave their honest opinion and I liked that.
Funny to me that people are still asking for more videos again. One of the major reasons I quit is exactly due to the extreme affiliate link spam addiction of "reviewers" of today. It felt like I was unable to gain actual trust from my audience considering their expectation of the worst by default, so there wasn't much of a point.
Final nail in the coffin was naturally the LCD-1 review. That's when I saw what people really thought at large, after being one of the first to review it after receiving a pre release loaner sample, and then returning it to the manufacturer afterwards with zero payment. I actually put in an order for one from my local dealer to buy it with my own money..aaaaaand then I heard the Sundara with revised pads, and canceled that order lol. But the writing was on the wall after seeing that severe negative reaction while doing everything I could and being doubted every step of the way from that point on. No, never again. Maybe an occasional stream, but reviewing? Lol, no. Crin and Resolve are SAINTS for continuing to do what they do.
@@metal571 Damned if you do and damned if you don't. I can respect your decision to walk away.
It's really rough to see you growing so big and then getting your progress set back down. Been following you since just before you hit 10k and the growth and rate of growth was incredible to see, here's hoping you get your channel back, but if you don't, best of luck with the new channel.
Yeah you should escalate this with youtube on twitter
We can fix it. Should get him his stats back asap.
Same. I've been watching him when he only has less than 6k subs.
@@mayonotes9849 i found him just before 60k and his channel growth was the fastest I'd ever seen.
Very good discussion about affiliate links and reviewers. I don’t agree on 100% of the points, but I do think you raise some valid concerns and it certainly does make me think. Well done Crin.
Hey Bandrew i bought my sm48 + evo4 from your review and i know you use affiliate links. Can you please elaborate further what you disagree with?
@@shayan-gg I disagree in the sense that the inclusion of affiliate links is inherently bad and will lead to misleading reviews for the sake of increasing sales. I have shit all over products and still included affiliate links to those products, why? Because I know people disagree with me. I include as many audio samples as I can so people researching are able to hear the real world examples, and while I’m doing those tests I am typically not including my opinion. This way the person watching/listening can develop their own opinion without me influencing it. Then if those tests help them make a decision to buy a product they can use the affiliate link. If they do want to hear my opinion, they can keep watching the conclusion though.
On top of that I refuse to do this full time for multiple reasons, and one of them is I have seen people go full time and that alters their relationship to content and how they approach reviews. By not being reliant on the income from youtube/affiliates, I can do whatever I want without concern for how it impacts the income because I still have a job. So my stance is really that I think the topic is more nuanced and I disagree with the idea that affiliate links are inherently bad.
But I am someone who uses affiliate links so that could be me doing backflips to justify it. I would never expect anyone to trust anything I do or so. I have to earn every ounce of trust/respect/etc. If someone believes that my use of affiliate marketing or my receipt of a product to demo makes me an untrustworthy source, I might disagree, but I understand that’s their opinion and that is them trying to make the most informed decision.
I don’ think that was a well formulated response, but now I need to get back to putting numbers in excel. My break is over.
I think same thing kind of applies to reviewers getting products from the manufacturers directly. Even if they are not intentionally misleading, I feel like it would make them pull their punches when it comes to reviewing. I see some smart Microphone brands who send review units to very small youtube channels also, that way I feel like they get a lot of marketing and the smaller channels are more inclined to make a positive review
ayy podcastage
By the way when are you going to start reviewing headphones. Don't you get bored with microphones that all sound much the same. Don't you get bored saying " please bring pizza pronto"?
No music, no special fancy editing, no jokes.
YOU KNOW CRIN IS DEAD SERIOUS WHEN THESE 3 GO TOGETHER.
He didn't even tell me to fuck off!
And no "fuck off" omg.
@@MrKismayaz holy shit
wishing u all the best in getting ur account back
Did he get hacked or something?
@@fabricatorzayac probably
@@Sekaism- no his google account got nuked.
Thanks for raising this issue in such an eloquent manner. The "you don't know that" aspect is the key piece to this in my view. The affiliate link feedback loop doesn't necessarily entail dishonesty, nor does it require that the reviewer gloss over the issues, but the audience can't be confident it's not happening - especially without long-term familiarity with the reviewer. Moreover, I tend to view this as part of an even larger problem when it comes to the default relationship we have to information. It feels impossible to communicate a nuanced position on something when the expectation is either "it's the greatest thing ever" or "it's shit". It's as though 'spin' is a requirement for everything because we aren't willing to have that internal dialogue or decision making to come to our own conclusions on a given piece of information, almost as if perceived personal value comes from the hype that others have conferred upon something - whether incentive-driven or otherwise. This is a bit of a weird one but, at the moment I'm not opposed to affiliate links in practice SOME of the time, given examples of when they're used innocuously, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't opposed to them in principle, and I think their widespread use has been a net negative overall.
Most people that have been in this hobby for a while can see through all the shills like a pain of glass. I just feel sorry for the ones that get sucked in by the hype vacume...
Or you could bypass this issue completely by suggesting that every pair of high end headphones can be EQ'd to your physiology/sonic preferences despite the fact that you're influencing/degrading the very subtle technicalities that said high end headphones were designed to reproduce....then folks could buy any pair of high end headphones from your shop worry-free without regard to tuning, right?
I agree.
A really eye opening topic to think about. Doubt really does raised when a reviewer is affiliated with a product. Some big UA-camr impression of a product really does go out of the window when the product is plastered on the name of the certain influencer. I really like to watch this one reviewer but it's been a promo video instead of reviewing the product itself
I’ve seen this in the Speaker market when I was shopping for a setup. I could not find a bad review nor a single review where I was told not to buy something. It was always “it’s a little bright/neutral/warm/tight bass/etc so look into it if that’s your thing.” Like in my mind I’m thinking every speaker reviewer wants to keep getting review samples to keep doing their thing; but if everything is worth buying and they always affiliate link it, wtf do I need to watch their reviews?
this exact thing happened with some monitors i got, and only after getting them i started to see flaws not a single review pointed out.
Exactly my impressions too!
This is why I basically only search Reddit for reviews these days. Making videos costs money, and that money comes from giving positive reviews
Watch GR-Research if you are looking for a reviewer that will give negative reviews.
Tbf audio is extremely subjective so part of that could just be people trying to remove their own bias, because we’ve all come across a headphone or something that sounds like shit to us when other people love it. But a lot is probably also greed
Personally, I worry more about companies giving out free or review units. For smaller reviewers, they may feel like they have to be positive so they can continue to get the free units for review which drives their content creation. Since they can't afford to buy all the new units, getting cut off means no more content and no more revenue. When it becomes your job, your integrity is much more important and can either purchase the products yourself, or get access to them through other means if you were blacklisted for giving a bad review.
It's even a problem with big creators which I've especially seen in smartphone content. Reviewers are told what they can comment on, when to post reviews and even told to make multiple videos. If a reviewer can't say all of their thoughts right when they get the product, what's the point of the review?
@@monikafiori Same in gaming laptops. You see a guy like Dave2D with a mountain of ASUS laptops on his table that the company just sends him and I'm like, yeah this is going to be a positive video. And yeah Marques Brownlee will do a review for one phone, but then he pulls out ten other phones and I'm like "oh you got to keep all of those huh?"
Yeah that's a huge issue. Gamers nexus is blacklisted by many people in the tech world because he's brutally honest.
He was so honest he forced others to be more honest because everyone would cross reference reviews with his.
Every field needs a gamers nexus and the people need to support them
@@backlogbuddies Agreed
@@monikafiori ok to be fair the part "when to release review" is not really a bad thing that harms review integrity. Its just how the business work, they sign nda to not release their review before the agreed time by the manufacturer (commonly known as embargo time). A few thing that are beneficial is, reviewers dont need to compete to release the fastest video compared to their peers, and also if there is anything wrong with how the manufacturer intended the product or soemthing else during the review process they can delay the product release, send a replacement and its not as harmful to both side reputation, one releasing a sloppy product and one making a will-be-irrelevant video that will be seen as biased compared to actual product (if they dont take down the vid).
We could extend this discussion to your collaborations with different IEM manufacturers too. You have money to gain from reviewing competitors to your collaboration IEMs worse than you might review them normally. I agree reviewers should be seperating their financial gains from the realm of prodcuts they review. Case in point: Don't just buy dusk... think before buying dusk :D
This a good point, you can minimize but never eliminate this conflict of interest.... However as long as crin discloses this to his audience, people are given the proper information to make an educated purchasing decision.
Good point. So is crin really free to review another product of a manufacture he had a collab with? It's not as bad as affiliate links but some of his income is also by those manufactures.
But he can't review competitor IEMs "worse" because there's nothing to compare against because doesn't review his own products. If IEM A is a direct competitor to dusk and Crin says IEM A sucks, that doesn't even imply that customers should buy dusk instead because I'm pretty sure he has said he wouldn't promote his collabs that way. And he has no incentive to positively review other products of companies he collabs with because he only earns money from his specific collab products.
I believe crin has said that he’ll never review or put any product on his rating list with any collab product he’s worked with
@@otakupetrolhead1392 Yes he didn’t review or even mentions his collab iems in any of his videos (which is definitely the right way to do it), but that still doesn’t free him from influence. Let’s take a practical example, his 7hz timeless review. in which he mentions by name the blessing 2 as the only alternative/competing iem to the timeless. sure he didn’t mention the dusk specifically, but given we are watching a crin video that is, in a way, implied. Also either way he recommended only one competing iem, which was the one made by the company with which he has a working relationship. Does that prove any bias on his part? No, but it also doesn’t disprove it. Which is the entire point of this video, don’t just blindly trust reviewers.
Oh God, I never thought about that but I have seen so many audio reviwers, with high number of subs having affiliate links of the product which they've reviewed in the video.
Actually that's why I like Dankpods, he might not be the most knowledgeable on audiophile gear, but he talks about stuff he's bought, with honesty.
But then Meze stole his heart lol, I don't blame him. I also like small companies hand-building stuff with passion, and I'd love them more if they sent me super-expensive headphones.
He's on the exact same level
It's this kind of problem that made me to look up for other sources (various review sites, reddit, reviews on e-shops, etc.) to decide whether the certain product is actually good.
No matter how much positivity a reviewer crams into a product, I still have doubts and will search up as much as I can until I finally reached the final conclusion regarding my choice.
THANK YOU, I have seen too many reliable reviewers in a spread of hobbys slide towards affiliate links and positive reviews in the last 5 years.
i really like when the audio quality drops when the ad starts
when I see an affiliate link on a review, I immediately disregard it.
While I agree that affiliate links can be an issue, we can clearly see the difference of approach from a reviewer to another. I believe the bias goes beyond that. How much do you like a brand and how much you will be forgiving. We see the same behavior in the forums where people will jump on the hype train and defend their favorite brands, then switch to the next product and so on. We all have bias and especially in this hobby, we are free to disagree with the opinion or preferences. More than affiliate links or not, the goal is to find a reviewer you share most of the audio taste.
I believe this topic applies to collabing with manufacturers as well. You cannot expect the audience to look at a product the same way they do before knowing a collaboration exists. Regardless of publishing a negative review or asking to avoid buying the product, just having your name on its cover will build up a conscious (or subconscious) trust in the user and encourage them to buy it.
Any kind of money making acts beside the reviews will eliminate the 100% pure unbiased performance and it's undeniable.
I’ve been reviewing stuff since 2009 and made hundreds of reviews.
There’s definitely some conflict of interest with affiliate links.
My advice to reviewers is to think of what happens when you put out an unbalanced review. The company is the one that benefits. Your audience won’t get the whole picture, may buy the product to find out that it sucks (happened to me), and come back to complain on your channel, indefinitely into the future. You may earn a few dollars but at the expense of your reputation and credibility which is worth so much more. So no one benefits except the company.
For my reviews, I just present my findings. If the product sucks, too bad, I’ve got to say it sucks otherwise it’s my audience who’s gonna waste their money, and they will come back to complain. But ultimately I will make sure the review is balanced. And I welcome people who say I’m biased to so say where I’m biased.
I put affiliate links also to point people to check out more reviews on Amazon. Whether they buy is not important, but if they want to buy then I want to make sure they know exactly why they can expect from the product.
This is the same phenomenon that doomed the gaming magazines. They published rumors, innuendo, and always positive reviews. Why would I pay for that?
I remember Ranton making a similar critique of game reviewers, where he mentions how there is an ever so slight bias a reviewer will have if he's given a review copy of a game for free vs if he bought the game himself.
Unless it's really important like, i don't know, health products, i don't undrestand why it would REALLY matter
Rip verified channel
Its allways a blessing watching a video from an audiophile cause their audio quality is always pretty decent. I've never seen anyone with a really shitty mic or etc. Love you crin
7.5min intro to a sponsor break. Just blew Linus’s transitions out of the water lol
That Zeos guy is worst of them all.
95% positive reviews.
Any chance you can look into Samsung phones' Adapt Sound feature?
It plays beeps, you answer whether you can hear them, and it's supposed to boost the weak frequencies. I'd love to see this professionally tested.
small change channels like mine don't have sponsors and make nothing on ads. I use affiliate links but I also make very little cash with that. Nevertheless, I still provide the affiliate links when I trash a piece of gear, because viewers may still think "fuck off, I'm buying those klipsh anyway". And then they buy them without using my link. They don't work, really.
never click affiliate links
You raise a lot of valid points. We're not in complete agreement here but this conversation gives me a lot of food for thought and I am thankful to you for that. At the end of the day we all have to decide where we draw the line when it comes to monetizing our traffic and audience. Excellent video Crin!
Yeah hard disagree for me as well. I think:
1. Viewers aren't stupid - they see through biases easily. You can fool some of the people some of the time etc
2. No one is 'truly' objective.
3. Early access / free samples are easily a bigger biasing factor than affiliate links
4. What about being sponsored by audio companies? No one reviewing audio products should have anything on their channel sponsored by those companies.
Thank you for bringing up the topic in a reasonable manner. One thing that everyone who talks about this forgets: Affiliate links only pay out *if the product is not returned*. So, if you don't point out the negatives of a product, you'll quickly lose reputation, not just with viewers, but with companies that you are affiliate links with, as they will have to deal with large numbers of returns, and you wont make any money. It's even possible to have a negative Amazon affiliate balance. So, any reviewer with sense will only want people will enjoy a product to buy it. But heck, if I wanted to just make money, I'd post dozens of "Best 10" or "Top 5" videos full of links, or strap a camera to my head and... you know the rest. I agree with Resolve in that some people expect you to say a product is either great or crap. The reality is that some things that people think are crap, other people think are great. The challenge in reviewing is giving enough information that people can make a decision based on their own preferences, irrespective of anything else.
Review units that reviewers can be kept for free also might make reviews sound overly positive as they can keep the product for free
Great points well said. Can't tell how many times I see Amazon users saying "ignore the UA-cam reviewers hype! This thing sucks!" Lol
Ime after a short time buying stuff and comparing to reviews, you start to see which reviewers are in it for the cash.
New giveaways for 50k and 100k myb
I think it‘s more a problem of only linking to amazon or shops that offer affiliate programs, even if the price or service is maybe worse than on smaller sites/sites that don‘t have these programs
time to do another 100k subscriber race :| RIP Crinacle V1.0
Haizz I was expecting a FOff at the end qwq
Very important topic considering a lot of audio reviewers were "in the industry" before (meaning salesman of some kind). People usually repeat the model that they understand or works for them.
Ehhhhhhhhhh...
There are lots of potentially meaningful conflicts of interest opinion-givers navigate: Affiliate links, advertising deals, "brand friendliness" requirements, matching audience expectations / tribal identity (especially RE: politics, patronage), personal identity / brand, free review products, BOUGHT review products (people want to justify their purchases), relationships with people in the business, paid travel for events, discomfort of being alone in unpopular opinions, selling competing products, being employed by a retailer, etc.
I'm not skeptical that each of these can influence given opinions away from honesty, but I am skeptical that affiliate links are uniquely influential. As a consumer of reviews, consider the potential influence of any and all interests at play, demand transparency, and use reputation heuristics and your own credibility radar to evaluate the honesty of an opinion. IMO, using any of these conflicting interests as a binary flag for deciding to trust / distrust an opinion will not be particularly useful.
Reputation and track record are harder things to evaluate, but I personally find them infinitely more useful indicators of honesty. And a reviewer's desire to build a valuable reputation and track record is, I find, exactly the counter to the potentially dishonest influence of non-platonic interests of people.
Disclosure: I include affiliate links in roughly half my videos, which let me buy more things to review without my wife looking at me side-eyed. For anyone looking to maximize their own affiliate revenue, chifi is not the way -- cheap Bluetooth earbuds, iPhones, and other name brands drive way more sales on UA-cam.
Very nicely put 👌 btw I put further comments in a response to the metal571 tweet since they didn't appear here.
In a nutshell look for several sources who you develop trust in through (i) their opinion resonating with yours for subjects you know about (even if they have different sound signature preferences) (ii) their being consistent - there aren't big leaps in sound quality every 6 months let alone every week (tho maybe features) and (iii) their referencing empirical evidence like sound demos and FR graphs.
BRO that NordVPN sponsor segway was *chef's kiss*
I never buy anything using affiliated links on principle.
I only link the gear I use personally. I haven’t reviewed other products…
Hello crin, can you make a video of your speaker setup? Especially interested in your dsp room correction stuff, which im a total noob with. You rock!
Really sucks that you lost access to your account. Wishing you luck on that, and commenting in case you can't so the algorithm sends your new channel back out to everyone.
Is it really a Crinacle video if I don't hear "don't die.... fuck off"
Thank you for this. UA-cam reviewers have been terrible lately.
I'm mainly a smartphone hobbyist/collector (and recently IEM's lol) and it's hard to find good smartphone reviewers.
I want a review, not a commercial.
Great topic for discussion. Personally, I am less concerned about affiliate links than other sources of bias although I feel that any time that a reviewer posts an affiliate link, they should disclose that they are getting a cut.
One of the biases that I have a difficult time with is when people have personal or business relationships with individuals who produce these products. Crin's collaboration IEMs are a great example of this. To Crin's credit he abstains from reviewing them, but many of the other reviewers are reviewing them and it will be difficult for them to be objective because they know him. Not that I think that they would lie, but bias is sneaky and can affect people unconsciously. The same thing happens with Modhouse and ZMF products because so many reviewers seem to be on a first-name basis with the people behind those products. It's just so natural and feels so powerful to not want to drag a friend's work publicly.
I think with any review, it's important to take note that it's impossible to remove all bias and getting a variety of perspectives will help, but even that is not perfect.
Da heck happened to Crin’s subscriber base…they were 100k+ a few days ago, today suddenly 5k.
He lost his main account
@@1MaxVerstappen33 How/why?
Smoothest ad transition I ever saw 🤙
I can't stop looking at those Neumann speakers xD
Objectivity vs self-interest. Affects EVERYTHING not just audiophiles. The humanity's never-ending problem.
the only Nord ad I didn't immediately skip
Thank you very much for this video, well said. The other thing going on with part-time reviewers who rely on free or heavily discounted products for their reviews is the feedback loop between the companies providing those products who prefer positive reviews since it will increase their sales and have been known to cut off reviewers from future free/discount products if a reviewer posts a negative review. A lot of amateur reviewers will preface their reviews with a personal statement about their ability to be objective regardless of how they received their product. I'm sure most of them are being honest and many believe they are being objective and not being affected, but as readers we never know if the Dunning-Kruger effect is happening and the reviewer is being biased without realizing it. The only way we know as readers is if the review contains objective data that can't be affected by a reviewers opinion and we rely primarily on that and/or the reviewer wouldn't be negatively impacted if they stopped getting free/discounted products because they generate income from other means (such as sponsorships, Patreon, etc.) that would allow them to obtain products for review regardless of whether a company discounts or gives them products or not.
U literally explain my issue with Unbox therapy, he never gives bad opinions, even when the item is a scam
Something I'm glad you mentioned in this video to reviewers who think they're being fair regardless of affiliat links: *You don't know* how much it's biasing your view.
If there's a part of your brain that's aware that more sales of the product is good for you, then when running into issues, another part of your brain will be more forgiving or sensitive to it *without the person even realizing it.*
It's the difference between a neighbour getting drunk and being an idiot vs your friend doing the same. You will not judge your friend as harshly as a random neighbour for the same bad behaviour, and you wouldn't even be aware of the bias unless it was made obvious. We are all hypocrites in many ways - reviewers are no different.
But since this bias isn't obvious, it allows them to carry on while still believing they're one of the "good honest reviewers". It's a method of cognitive dissonance
Love the segue into your sponsor haha
I think that most of this is just common sense! This is something we all have to deal with in every video we watch, every ad or article we read, every salesperson we deal with in real life.....
I agree with everything you said crin
Just look at the smartphone industry; every year we are losing another feature, stagnation is everywhere.
On the laptop market however there's an amazing competition; we have 12mm gaming tablets that uses a f@cking intel in chip!
A reviewer should be a middle man between the customers and manufacturers.
I'm thinking about starting to post some reviews and I've been thinking about this topic for a very long time.
this is such a widespread problem that I don't even know if it's reversible
I have so much respect for you doing this!
It can be very difficult to find truly unbiased reviews, seeing these links in the discription has become something that had started to bug me because I never know how true the review is. I recently bought a microphone, but was only able to find one single review that didn’t have an affiliate link, was quite annoying for finding truly unbiased reviews
That, somehow, killed some forums of different hobbies. The more administrators had connections to the manufacturers or companies about their hobbies, the more they would receive privileges, access or so. Then moderators were chosen if they had the correct thinking. The popularity of UA-camrs in part could be because opinion is independent, but once they get into communities of like-minded individuals, or a donating audience then there are like natural boundaries. As you say a balance could be achieved to not pass that salesman threshold.
I completely agree with you. Good luck rebuilding your channel. I wasn’t a subscriber until I heard your outro.
Such a great first video by a first timer. I predict that this channel will grow very big, very fast!
Definitely agree here! How can a review be 100% truthful or uncolored if the item was given freely or if it's connected to an affiliate link. Even if the review is actually truthful - it doesn't change the fact that the perception of that reviewer has changed. A person who buys something with their own money with nothing to gain or lose by telling the truth is more likely to tell the truth - or is most definitely perceived as such. Whereas with the latter - they risk losing future business with that particular company or with others - if they are too harsh with the review.
this is linus tech tips entire business model
I _really really really_ hope that UA-cam can get your old channel back man...to lose all that right at such a huge milestone.
This is very real but also goes for reviewer early access to free review units on premium products that you can't fund yourself so easily. It creates a dependency on a good relationship with big parties in the industry to assure you have enough content. Added to this affiliate links topic there are multiple incentives to keep reviews positive. This is especially apparent for people reviewing expensive hifi stuff but also goes for for instance game journalism and the car industry.
I don't know the inner workings of affiliate links, but why would a reviewer with any integrity post a link to products they don't stand behind 100%?
Also, not trying to confront you Crin, but what's the difference between shilling your own product vs posting affiliate links? Doesn't being bias or not go out the window then? I'm genuinely interested.
Cool content! Subbed!
Difference being he's very cleary trying to SELL you something and not trying to give you an unbiased opinion about a product (like in a review).
Good luck with the new channel! You'll climb right back up.
Zreviews is so guilty about this lol
z reviews is literally a salesman (ignoring how creepy he is)
Zreviews is a 100% infomercial ad for products, to the point where he carefully selects once every blue moon a product to destroy to break the mold.
Affiliate links every video, then 'garage sales' where his Patrons can buy things he bought with their money already, and there's no way on earth he's reviewing the things people actually want to see or are asking for in the Patreon discussions because he'll take ages getting around to a new headphone nobody has reviewed made by a big name in audio to instead shill some random chinese bluetooth tube amp off Amazon. But i mean i'm sure everything sounds good from a mansion basement in a leather cinema recliner.
Talking about Zeos I thought he was Jack Black😂
I agree with you wholeheartedly. This is the exact thing I noticed myself. I know a pair of headphones is bad or mediocre because I've tested them myself.
But the majority of reviews are super positive, touting them as the second coming of Christ.
And it's not just the small websites, some of the bigger ones do it too. Right, Wirec... . You get to question what kind of deals they have behind the scenes. They're probably making a lot of money though.
Unfortunately, it gives a bad rep to all the reviewers. You just have to work hard on your reputation.
i think this issue is reaaaaally apparent on pc hardware channels - we've just gone through the xmas (i.e. spending) period
and as we got closer to xmas, it seemed like every video is a top 10 keyboard/gaming mouse/headset/etc with 10 affiliate links
If I was in this situation, I would consider not using affiliate links for individual reviews but if I made a headphone recommendation video, I wouldn’t mind using affiliate links because I’d be choosing multiple headphones that I already like
Excellent video on an important topic. A very fair position which balances the entirely legitimate need for income with integrity.
I'm new to audiophile headphones and reviewers and appreciate the work in you are putting in. Your comedy, content and sound quality are great . Hope you get your channel back . I don't mind to much conflict of interest long as there honest but the issue is integrity and falling behind as this money could be put into the channel limiting potential audience .
Ps look forward to a review of possible on Kph40 or 30i to check what others have said as always looking for that Budjet king that looks ok out and about . Did get some ksc 75 but a bit shouty low bass for my taste. I'm surprised koss never approached you. Might consider some zex pro but I know you want give it a mark plus I prefer a headset
Thank goodness people provided a link to the new channel, happy to see you back crin
Thanks for sharing. My biggest beef with reviewers is that some are just copy cats. It is hard to find good reviews to discuss pros and cons without just listing what everyone is saying. Custom content is hard to find.
great video. this is clearly a very big problem which is hardly addressed, so im glad to see someone like you speak up about it. good luck in getting your old account back. sucks soo much to see all of those milestones go down the drain
Crin when you said "sponsor should not affect how you review" I had such a horrible flashback because back in my writing days a certain A company that sells motherboards and laptops would stop paying us if we were to say any downsides to the product. Literally, I couldn't say aa single bad thing or I'd lose my job at the media company. The laptop/tablet thing was full of issues and not a single upside
Guess what? I quit.
Great and important video. However, has there been a review of those Genelec monitors? I'd be very interested to get Crin's perspective on studio monitors vs. headphones/iems for desktop usage.
Keeping thing honest, I love this take.
It become pretty clear the bias once you get into affiliates links.
Thank goodness Crin is only doing things that produces music when you stick it in your ears and not 'keyboards' :P
powerful topic, well said. Love your stuff crin, your doing good work!
You’re
@@bodythetan no i meant Crin, wait this was like 90 days ago
Great topic, thanks for or covering it!! On a different but similar story, there is reviewers I follow in different industry’s that wont take loaners, they buy at full price everything they review. I value that a lot!!!
Well done to bring up a topic that most "reviewers" will be afraid to bring up.
Good exposition on this subject. Very interesting
Almost every reviewer is in reality a promoter looking to make extra bucks.
Speaking of ads affecting reviews, i was referencing your IEM list yesterday and your Adsense ad made it so I couldnt see the entire right side of the list due to my screen size. Just thought I’d let you know.
Case in point: Zeos Pantera.
This is interesting… because actually, crinacle’s own reviews are actually “tainted” or “marred” with the same credibility problem introduced by affiliate links, but in his case the source and scope of impact are different. In crinacle’s case, the credibility issue is introduced by his IEM collaborations and the scope of impact is on any negative comment or criticism he has for anything he reviews.
Here’s how that works.
With regards to his positive reviews, crinacle’s word is reliable as his standards remain ever stringent, even when he has his IEM collaborations to sell. HOWEVER, when crinacle says something negative about any IEM, how sure can one be that the negative comment or criticism is not somehow in his interest in people buying his collaboration IEMs over others? Think about it.
Now, of course he refrains from being a salesman for his IEMs in refraining from reviewing his own IEMs and reminding people to read his articles on them as ads. However, every negative comment on any other IEM indirectly will funnel sales to his IEMs. How? The reader’s thought is, well, if crinacle repudiates this kind of sound, what sound would he approve of or endorse? Enter the collaboration IEMs.
Still, this video gives a good discussion regarding the effect of reviewer activities on their credibility.
I'm more willing to accept Crinacle's collaborations because he continues to criticize the companies he has collaborated with as well as their products. Sennheiser sponsored his 100K-subscriber giveaway on his previous channel, but all his scathing criticisms of their previous headphones remain on their site, and in his recent review of a Sennheiser IEM, he talked about how terrible some of their older IEMs are. He also went on to cut ties with KZ after learning that some of the drivers in their "multi-driver" IEMs were tuned such that their impact on the sound was negligible at best; he also continues to criticize the majority of their lineup for being samey-sounding.
But I think this points to the primary disagreement I have with Crin on the subject: working with companies is not the same thing as shilling for them. Affiliate links are not inherently bad or compromising, even in a review setting. What matters are the ethics and motivations of the person or people using them. I've seen reviewers on UA-cam harshly criticize mediocre, crappy products, but they still include affiliate links to them because, hey, if someone still wants to buy this shit, might as well have an affiliate link. There isn't one singular thing that lets you tell whether someone is a reviewer or a fake reviewer. You have to look at it comprehensively.
Welcome to UA-cam! Great first video, I can see you hitting 100K subs pretty easily.
He already has.
So happy I Googled your name! Sorry to hear about your Google account dude! Hope all goes well with that.
I think we're always finding excuses to justify a new purchase. Even if we've purchased something recently. For this reason, we are attracted to "hype" (or sellers). They give us "objective" reasons to convince ourselves that it is worth it. Most of the times, however, it is not. I think it's too easy to blame the reviewers/sellers when the whole audience is desperately demanding them (plus the hype they bring).
I dont think I've ever bought something through an affiliate link in all my years on the internet. If something sounds good, just search for other takes on the product and find it organically. My reasoning for never using affiliate links is exactly for the reasons you so eloquently explained, so I won't rehash them here.
this is an awesome video and courageous. thank you.
Thanks to crin , i now stay away from affiliate reviews on UA-cam.
Not sure what happened bro, but throwing you a sub and watching all your videos to help you restart. Good luck.
One of the ways to solve this problem is to make a video for the comparison of two or more products on the same price range and putting the affiliate links for each one. Whatever the viewers pick, you will earn a cut.