I recently had need to buy a thermal camera. I wanted to buy a good quality one that would last a long time without spending £1000’s on some overkill industrial device. I looked for online stores that aren’t amazon, but I couldn’t really find any named stores/brands that I’d heard of selling decent ones. So I tried to search for reviews, but literally every review either had affiliate links trying to get me to buy the expensive ones on amazon, or was a literal ad on youtube disguised as an indie review with sub-10k views from some nobody channel. So I reluctantly looked on Amazon, and as usual a load of the reviews there are ai-generated and I have no real idea which products are actually good, and there are a thousand knock-off cheapo products from alphabet-soup companies with names like AXLGOFN, which I’m not remotely interested in.

I eventually managed to find and buy a decent camera, and it was the same price on amazon versus some other site I hadn’t previously heard of, so I bought it on the other random electronics site.

But, my question is more broad: how do you navigate the online hellscape? Do you have a philosohpy or strategy about how to navigate a market you know nothing about and pay a sensible price for a good product without getting scammed? This experience just seems to be normal now, and it’s exhausting. I’m sick of ai-generated reviews, I’m sick of “paid reviews” and youtube videos of “this company sent me this product for free with these 12 talking points which I will now read to you”, and I’m sick of companies called AXLGOFN trying to sell me cheap tat that will last 14 minutes.

  • helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world
    2·
    4 hours ago

    I follow a few general checks, the more “checks”, the less likely it is to be a sham.

    • does the brand have their own website/exist outside of the store (Amazon, Walmart, etc).
      • Also does it exist on more than one store.
      • Avoid alphabet soup brands. However, sometimes an alphabet soup brand is real, it’s just unfamiliar yo you. Generrly if you can’t attempt to pronounce it, don’t bother.
    • Price - consider what it is and what a “cheaper” version would be.
      • What is the average price of the item on amazon? Say the brand-name expensive options are around $40. The knockoffs under $25 are probably junk. But the stuff in the $25+ range might be legimate budget options.
    • Reviews - looking for a healthy mix of 4-2 stars.
      • Read the 1 star reviews and see if the reviewers applied any critical thinking. If they ordered a 50 button mouse that says it only works on windows and they complain it doesn’t work on their Mac you know its a user problem. Othertimes they complain about shipping problems outside the sellers control like the box got wet and disintegrated.
      • Every manufactured product has a few duds, the question is will it be returned with out issue and the frequencies of the duds.
      • Do the reviews line up with the product or talk about something random (keep in mind some products have variants that are actually different products). If the speaker reviews start talking about how great the socks are… run.
    • YouTube/video reviews
      • Look for multiple independent reviews, if all of them seem to follow the same “talking points”, its a sign they’re paid reviews…or they’re just reading the description page.
      • Also the more independent reviews either means the company cares about marketing which is good and/or the reviews actually liked or hated the thing enough to dedicate time to a review.
      • what else is on the channel, is a bunch of mass-produced “slide show” reviews or do they actually seem to use and test a variety of product for a period of time. Or is this one thing the only review they’ve ever done?
    • reddit
      • It’s still one of the best places to get reviews. You’ll see the types of problems people are having, if there’s solutions and sometimes get an idea of what ths customer support is like.