An interesting take on what's happening in the industry today. It was Simon Price's personal experience, but I wonder if it's happening more often than not?
Speakers arrive, nothing agreed to before hand. Free speakers? Does he get to keep them? Doesn’t say. Twisted reasoning too. On the one hand he’s a reviewer, so don’t change a word. But then he’s also performing a service for payment. Even though nothing was agreed to before hand.
If this really is the state of the business today, people putting in all kinds of time and effort with no guarantees, then turning around crying why they didn’t get paid the pay they never asked to get paid, wow its lucky anything ever gets made.
On the other hand where’s my free speakers? This guy’s whining about a week? I put in three months!
If the guy took time to do a review and the company benefited, would be nice to send a token of appreciation but there are also ethical issues to consider in cases like this. In general reader expectation is that reviews are unbiased and reviewers not compensated. So it can be a very fine line that gets smudged up easily.
The actual state of ethics in the consumer electronics industry or any ethics rules that apply to that is a mystery to me. Maybe others have experiences they can relate. I know the industry I work in (financial services) is highly regulated and ethics violations will get you fired pronto but most industries are probably not so tightly regulated.
Financial services industry is highly regulated even more so since the 2008 debacle. The guidelines are well documented. Violations are not tolerated. At least at reputable companies. Everyone where I work is required to take ethics training every year and expected to follow the guidelines.
I tend to agree with you mapman, than again, there's no incentive for a reviewer other than to be a hobbyist like the rest of us audiophiles. If there's no financial incentive, you could hardly call it a profession, it simply isn't anymore. I do read reviews, generally I don't pay for them either.
millercarbon - yeah if I were a reviewer I'd want to know what the deal was before I started work. It seems online reviews like John Darko where he goes out and buys what he reviews are less prone to ethical challenges? I believe he makes money from traffic, the advertising is paid for, because of traffic his media brings to youtube? He's not paid to review anything, he's paid for people spending time on his page being exposed to the advertising of whoever pays.
If you can’t support yourself as a “professional” product reviewer then your business model is at fault.
So, for his piss poor business acumen, this reviewer wants more REGULATIONS? Just for him? Laws that suit him, so he can make money? This is a terribly LAZY person who, instead of being business savvy, wants laws written so he doesn’t have to work at it??
Maybe that’s the British standard of work ethic, I don’t know. But elsewhere, it’s the job of the business to fashion its own business model and find its own source of LEVERAGE for profit and to identify its source of future growth.
Not making a profit as a novelist, for instance? Get the government to pass a law so publishers have to buy your book, right??
Nowhere did this audio equipment reviewer convince me that his services are unique, and deserving of payment for his services. He reviewed equipment with no contract, no legal obligation from the manufacturers that he would be compensated.
And for all his business savvy, he’s angered that he’s not getting any compensation?
I agree with the point that getting paid by the company whose products are being reviewed presents conflict of interest. That is the reason why, for example, Consumer Reports purchases all the products they review and doesn’t even accept advertising from manufacturers — they aren’t obligated to review products positively unless that is their finding.
On the other hand, I understand that he wants to make a go of reviewing as a career and needs compensation for the hours he spends reviewing, recording, editing, etc. Mr. Price indicates that he has a Youtube channel — perhaps he should seek advice from those reviewers who are already financially successful due to advertising revenue on Youtube and see if he could benefit from any of those suggestions. He would still need to attract a subscribing audience and “likes” of his work.
@wolfie62 - I think he may be contorting British Law to meet his own benefit. I don't think the Brit's laws are at all to serve the lazy at all, and I don't think it's an us and them situation either.
News media is evolving, for example when I go to open my emails, I use a site not unlike Hotmail (as well as hotmail) and there's always news articles, which is where I found this one about the music industry by Mr Price. The news has moved across to internet, and I am betting (guessing) hard copy sales of newspapers has dropped??
I guess a well respected reviewer, with a talent for expressing his findings in a credible manner (because let's face it there's been a lot of verbage been frowned upon by us here in Agon, industry sales speak that's not got any credibility), he is actually an influencer?
Which is why forums like this are such a wealth of knowledge and experience. We all know that, at least I know of myself, I am (we are) somewhat proud of and biased towards purchases I've (we've) made, and want to share the good I (we) have found. That's why loads of people put up their products they have found when others ask for speaker, amplifier, room treatment, interconnects etc. It's not bad, it's simply human nature.
Getting your products reviewed is certainly an intelligent part of an advertising campaign, he's complaining that the PR guy is getting paid, and he's not. The PR guy is getting a commission and he's not. It does get a little convoluted when that is a consideration, well to me anyway.
Yes his business model is the reviewers responsibility, agreed.
Lets all say that there is bigger problem in audio industry and in the world....
Reviewing is supposed to be neutral, without ties to the product reviewed...
Who want to read reviewers that are paid for reviewing?
I prefer to read the company that sell the product and the users than the paid reviewer....
There will always be reviewers that does it for the pleasure to write anyway....
If i was the company that created a product the last thing i want is to be reviewed by a paid reviewer....The consumer i am agree with the company here....
Talking about b--ching and moaning. You make the deal before you do the review not after. No banner, No review. This fellow needs to get some business savvy.
There is always secondary gain or the threat of loss in any review business. It is why you can never make a purchase decision on one review alone.
I can understand why the company edited his review. In my opinion, he's not really a good writer. As long as they didn't change the meaning, he shouldn't have a problem with it.
I know a guy who formerly reviewed audio equipment too. If he liked the speakers, he was allowed to buy them at cost. Then he could sell them for profit if he found something he liked better. Not a bad way at all to constantly upgrade a system.
Interesting topic. Let’s assume his service is valued by the consumer. If he gets paid by the manufacturer it calls into judgment his bias- even if it is after the fact- and even if the bias were unconscious. If he has ads from manufacturers I believe that would still be the case. The only way to avoid bias, is if he sells his services directly to consumer- such as a subscription, or if his reviews are picked up by traditional print or e-sites. I think the whole internet monetary model challenges unbiased review, reporting, etc. How many would pay $5/ month to subscribe if the content was exceptional? Certainly some. The issue would be he would be under tremendous pressure to keep the content value proposition high. My largely uninformed opinion is he wants the reward without the pressure of going all in.
The writer comes off as a cry baby with an overinflated sense of self-importance. While his article increased awareness about the speakers, so does word of mouth and posts on forums like this one. He dismisses the dealers as merely conduits but only a novice or a fool would buy a speaker based on one review. On the flip side of his argument, what does he do after giving a product a poor or luke warm review, does he send money to the company for their loss of sales? He mentions 6moons, but they have a firmly established and communicated business model crafted for reasons they clearly explain to their readers. He should develop his own business model, give it a spin, and find out if it works....just like any other business, instead of acting like a charity that isn’t receiving enough donations.
This topic has been so beaten to death that it could be used for stuffing for that My Pillow Guy.
Newspaper sales have been dying for years. Having internet ads is just one template for generating revenue. Having manufacturers buy/place ad space on a reviewers site is another standard practice. At cost pricing is another way to go if the reviewer is inclined to buy the product. Again, nothing new.
Nothing like having your dreams run right smack into reality.
The writer comes off as a cry baby with an overinflated sense of self-importance. While
his article increased awareness about the speakers, so does word of
mouth and posts on forums like this one. He dismisses the dealers as
merely conduits but only a novice or a fool would buy a speaker based on
one review. On the flip side of his argument, what does he do after
giving a product a poor or luke warm review, does he send money to the
company for their loss of sales? He mentions 6moons, but they have a
firmly established and communicated business model crafted for reasons
they clearly explain to their readers. He should develop his own
business model, give it a spin, and find out if it works....just like
any other business, instead of acting like a charity that isn’t
receiving enough donations.
BINGO! We have a winner! Cannot be improved upon! Congratulations! Cheers! Well done!
-- the writer is not a good writer... reading his article, i would want to edit it too -- the writer is not business savvy, as others have mentioned, there is a plethora of media channels now, he is unable to figure out how to make a living despite this... well too bad -- good reviews for some form of compensation, usually indirect, has been the norm in this and many others industries for many many years -- you think stereophile or TAS does reviews out of their sense of charity? no ad buy, no review, cut n dry -- guy like john darko goes out and buys stuff then reviews it, good or bad, but he has figured out - how to get eyeballs and get his bills paid -- the PR firm in there is doing what they do, work on their client’s behalf and justify their own fees... so the reviewer gets squeezed... no surprise... dog eat dog world out there
Don’t know. Probably not enough. The apparently unregulated mortgage industry during teh Bush years specifically were the culprits. But it resulted in a lot of additional regulations being put in place to at least help that are still somewhat there TTBOMK but I read Trump administration had rolled them back somewhat again early on. The company I work is primarily investment services.....does not deal with mortgages. But the resulting stock market crash had a big effect for all.
Not being political here, but the issue in 2008 started in 1977 when HUD changed banks measuring stick in loans to under served areas. Both parties acted like drunken sailors enjoying the short term spoils, but the Clinton prosperity years were driven by rampant home buying/building due to that original change and a move to 50% from 30% of loans being in those areas. Investors could buy low income housing tax credits and many did. Buy is an interesting word as the potential for loss was minimal to none.
Deregulation laws for bankers were implementation of an Omen that we will live through now....
What is important to understand about the modern concept of money was already there almost 2 centuries ago in the second part of his " Faust" by Goethe....
But who read Goethe? Who understand him anyway?
The only man that rival Newton and Darwin on their own turf with success till this day was Goethe.... Think about what this teaches us about the stature of this man ....My conclusion after study is that Goethe is a bit more too clever for us all now....
Who understand Goethe ? Not the bankers for sure or the Wall Street tech.....It will be like asking beastly rapist to understand love and sexology....
Facts and theories are two different things. In the scientific method, there is a clear distinction between facts, which can be observed and/or measured, and theories, which are scientists’ explanations and interpretations of the facts.
Darwin had a theory, it’s still a theory, even if there are those who consider it fact.
Like the fact that most who have posted on here regarding the article by Simon Price, is that he is incorrect in his assumptions, and needs to reconsider how he conducts business if wants to continue reviewing hifi and make a living solely from it.
After all, aren’t we all here in Agon, when sharing our findings, somewhat all reviewers?
They topple statues of the Founding Fathers of a great free nation, and even some abolitionists, but look past one of the most negatively influential people to have lived, who was racist and sexist, who inspired Hitler and Margaret Sanger.
Gravity is a theory. If you jump off a building you fall to the earth is a fact. Evolution is a theory, descent with modification is a fact. Scientific theory is not some random notion about audiophile cables. Scientific theories are the explanation of facts we observe. For all intents and purposes gravity is a fact as is evolution. Grow up. Get out of the 15th century.
Reality is not something that can be explained only by human science in his actual state....If you think so, you dont know what reality is.... Think again.... :)
And by the way evolution and Darwinian evolution theory are not exactly the same thing...Goethe for example was an evolutionist before Darwin ....His discovery of the intermaxillary bone convinced him that apes and human has a common unknown ancestor.... His research in plant biology and morphology gives him a theory of evolution in plants changes also....His view of evolution are not Darwinian but they were very deep....
Reality complexities are not exorcised by argument like: a stone falling is a fact and gravitation theory explain it...Fact and theory are 2 sides of the same coin....Reality is a coin with only one side....
Accusing Darwin to be racist has not much sense in the era in which he lived where most people were...Asking why racism exist at these times makes more sense....But answering that implicate the history of human consciousness....
Humans are apes, the ignorance here is astounding.
We are not apes, it is a choice to be one or not at our level of existence.... And anyway all living creatures are conscious....Then somewhere are ultimately equals....
Ignorance is not bigger here than anywhere for someone who read books and is unable to read most newspapers ...
:)
djones, you make a good argument (example) that man indeed evolved from apes.
This affirmation is already a simplistic deformation of the evolution concept, in a bad interpretation and a reductionist one of the Darwinian theory....
Man does not evolved from apes....Apes like we know them now did not exist at all a million year ago or more....A million year ago "something" which was neither modern human nor apes like we know them now separate itself in 2 different evolutionary current : human and apes....
The "fact" that human comes from apes was the newspaper "truth" version of Darwinian theory against Bible fundamentalist....And this is absolutely not a fact in reality and not even in Darwinian theory....
Reality dont care about newspapers....People do....
Quite a few decades ago, when I worked at a high-end dealer in DC, I met a guy who wrote reviews for a few of the popular rags of the day. He told me that, if you tended to write positive reviews, a manufacturer would ship a product to you for evaluation and instead of returning the reviewed item to the manufacturer, they would offer to sell it to the reviewer at a huge discount. The reviewer would then be free to sell the unit and reap whatever profits they could, further adding to their compensation. He told me that he once reviewed a speaker from a major manufacturer and they offered to charge him 20% of retail, instead of returning them...a quick couple of hundred bucks more for him!
The problem with reviewers is that they make our choices inevitably oriented in some direction...
This direction is almost the same for almost all reviewers....What is the best new component on the market?
But what is important in Audio is not the choice of an electronic component at the end, there is plenty of good electronic components to choose first in this sea of products, but the most important at the end is the way we will embed the relatively good component we already have bought.... How to gives a way, how to make possible, and how to free his optimal S.Q. ?
But all reviewers guides our thinking process "nolens volens" in the urgent need to an upgrade not toward a rightful embedding of what we already own...
Then being paid or not, they are not neutral by the very requirements of their activity or profession....And for most Audio is synonymous with "generic" electronic design, not with the "specific" and necessary complex embeddings... But audio hobby is the art of the improved listenings, not the art of buying a new " something" that will solve all audio problems out of the box....
«Man does not come from apes, and listening does not evolve from engineering, it is the reverse»-Groucho Marx
“Humans are apes, the ignorance here is astounding.” Flat earthers felt the same way....as did those who believed the earth the center of the universe. Science evolves. Fact evolves. Some people don’t ;-)
Imo Abiogenesis and "embeddings" are two intellectually appealing schemes that go nowhere, in the first case literally, and the second, practically. :)
Imo Abiogenesis and "embeddings" are two intellectually appealing schemes that go nowhere, in the first case literally, and the second, practically. :)
Do not take your own confusion for reality....
And why do you compare "abiogenesis" and a simple notion like an"embedding" in audio matters, the embedding concept only clarify and presuppose some evident aspect and ways for an audio system to be working in a "specific" environment, then why relating this simple,evident notion, with a complex problem like life origin?
Are you confused or raging about my simple notion or the 2; or simply not rational for some reason?
Perhaps you are a reviewer and dont like my remarks about the inevitable bias of pro- reviewers?
Please clarify for us....
Thanks :)
But if i remember your posts to me in the past you expressively said that only money and upgrade can gives an audio top experience, no mechanical controls, no electrical grid controls, and not even acoustical controls all that i called "embeddings".... You even say to me to buy better speakers,without even knowing the speakers i own, instead of embedding rightfully the one i already have....You even said i was deluded or deluding myself because i was not thinking in the least to upgrade.... :)
Then it is not necessary to answer my actual post... You are a probably a pro- reviewer and you are confused or entertain the confusion in audio....All reviewers are not the same for sure....
My motto is : Dont upgrade something before embedding eveything rightfully....
Is it very difficult to understand a so simple advice? A children can understand that why not you?
No, except if you are brain dead or some kind of professional-reviewer or the 2, because there is a difference, all reviewers are not the same....
Anyway between abiogenesis reductive take on life and creation in 7 days by a bearded creator, there is a world and a reality to understand and very great space to explore...
And upgrading without embedding it properly is stupid, and nobody confuse a 100, 000 dollars amplifier with a 100 dollars one, nevermind the embeddings...
But is an audio experience of a great quality reserved to expansive system? The answer is no....We must teach ourself how to rightfully embed what we own before throwing money most of the times in illusory upgrades....
There is proof that "cave man"invented the wheel. evident in that Fred Flintstone had a phonograph. Of course, it was early technology as it used a bird for a tonearm and stylus. Imagine the added difficulties we'd currently have with square records?
You did pretty well except for saying humans are not apes. It's a classification thing, so don't take it personally. Humans are classified in the sub-group of primates known as the Great Apes. Humans are primates, but the primates that we most closely resemble are the apes. We are therefore classified along with all other apes in a primate sub-group known as the hominoids (Superfamily Hominoidea).
Thanks for your remarks, you are perfectly right and i cannot object or correct that because this is paleontological morphology science...
But when i was refering to man i was thinking also about the spiritual aspect of consciousness not only the morphological classification....
I am not a creationism and not a die hard Darwinian at all cost either....Reality exceed these 2 simplistic views....
:)
And you seem to have read me, human are apes or not, this is a free choice at the level where we live to identify our consciousness with the lowest or the highest level in the consciousness scale, and also relatively not only and solely to the modern morphology of man and apes......( by modern i mean 1 million years ) For me man is not totally reducible to actual biology....There is other sciences also useful to develop a concept of man linked to a concept of consciousness...
.Man is a complex phenomenon and it takes more than a few sciences to even only recognize the phenomenon, then using one science only to explain it is evident dogmas and veiled superstition.... :)
I also supposed that the actual classification is on the basis of a retrospectively observed ACTUAL morphological differences between apes and man.... But there is a validity limit about this retrospective projection and analysis in the past.... Somewhere in the past there is "something" that is neither a modern apes nor a modern human, and maintaining the differences is no more scientific and valid....This hominid entity is the ancestor of modern man and modern apes....This entity is not a man nor an ape....
Man dont come directly from modern apes, but from a common source with the apes more than one million years ago and probably more...
Man coming from apes is the title of the news in nineteen century sensationalist newspapers in the ape trials in US....This is not science....This is biblical writing in reverse mode....I am not biblical nor darwinian in this limited fashion at all....
Man is a modern ape. We are primates like chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas etc.., there was a common ancestor that was neither a chimpanzee or a human or a gorilla. Humans diverged from other primates somewhere between 5 to 7 million years ago. There is no either or , no us them, we are primates no more no less.
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