Comment on MKBHD - Do Bad Reviews Kill Companies?
Betty_Boopie@lemmy.world 9 months agoWhat?
Doug Demuro goes over every single weird little feature in the cars he covers. What does he not fully understand? But I also don’t conder his videos true reviews, I’m not in the market for 90% of the cars he shows, and I doubt many people are. It’s entertainment, and for car enthusiasts it’s fun to see a breakdown of a cool car.
As for MKBHD, I would say his smartphone reviews are some of the only ones worth watching on YT. He uses them for weeks as his main device and I’ve never seen him shy away from speaking his mind. Again, he’s an enthusiast and his nitpicks are probably irrelevant to a lot of users. But that’s exactly why I like his reviews, it’s a different perspective that I wouldn’t get anywhere else. Low quality? My brother MKBHD puts more effort into his b-roll shots than most channel put into the entire review.
I feel like I shouldn’t have to say this but reviewing anything boils down to “how many things can I find wrong about this product”. If I want all the gushy features and crap I would just watch the press release.
die444die@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Doug Demuro has some different style of videos. He has his old school vids where he shows off interesting aspects of mostly older videos and now he’s also doing reviews of new cars. The second type is the one I’m referring to.
Doug did a review of a VW ID.4 in which he complained about how the infotainment system is “slow” and that got blown so out of proportion I do believe that it affected their sales significantly.
With MKBHD I agree with what you’re saying, and low quality was the wrong way to describe them. It’s more that they are noticing little things that the general population would mostly not notice or care about but then that becomes the whole story of the device.
It’s not that I think it doesn’t have a place, it’s just that these enthusiasts opinions get blasted wide and far by other media and it’s frequently not taken in the context in which the video is created. They (other media) will latch onto a nitpick and proclaim the product to be doomed.
It’s one thing to go looking for an enthusiast deep dive, and it’s another to amplify these complaints to the level that is done currently.
My point is basically that I think there is some validity that enthusiast reviews are able to affect the market too much. Not that these people shouldn’t make their videos, just they should not be taken that seriously and amplified by other media.
It’s not the content creators fault, but I do think it affects sales more significantly than it should.
Betty_Boopie@lemmy.world 9 months ago
It’s a reviewers job to be honest; if the product is bad I appreciate them calling it out, no matter how small an issue is.
I’m not going to defend YouTubers that don’t know I exist, and honestly I don’t watch Doug that often anymore. But from what I can see even the new vehicles he reviews are niche and/or expensive as hell. The VW ID4 starts at $40k for only ~200 miles of range. Compared to iqoniq, mach-e, or the new Chevy EVs it’s just a bad value all around. Also, I genuinely think a snappy infotainment system is a necessity. I won’t even consider a Tesla since it doesn’t support carplay or android auto. Do the majority of people hold that same opinion? Hell no, but I still think it’s absolutely relevant to a review. Now, I could totally see your point of a review killing a company/product if the reviewer has a larger reach than the company. An example would be LTT’s “review” of a super niche waterblock from billet labs. But if you think one review tanked the sales of a car from one of largest conglomerate of car manufacturers then you’re woefully overestimating the reach of YouTube videos and online media.
Now humane is a bit of a different story, and the negative reviews are certainly not helping sales. But MKBHD’s video is a very honest explanation of his experience, and it shows how many things were promised but not delivered. If they didn’t want bad reviews, they should have delayed the product until it was ready.
You have a valid point that clickbait articles do more harm than the actual reviews, but again, I don’t think it’s the reviewer’s fault or problem. Most of these sites are full of other clickbait nonsense, and just like NYpost I’m not going to them for factual information. If the general public are being swayed by these articles, I don’t think they were seriously in the market for whatever product is being dragged through the mud. Most of what MKBHD and Doug reviews are premium products with premium prices, in my opinion they should scrutinized accordingly.
I think bad products fail on their own and the reviews and media accelerate that failure. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, but blaming the media for a company’s bad decisions solves nothing.
die444die@lemmy.world 9 months ago
FYI, Id.4 gets much closer to 300 miles of range. VW has always underestimated their efficiency, even on gas/diesel cars imo.
The reason I don’t think I’m overestimating Doug’s reach is that I was constantly seeing people parroting and citing his review after it came out. All anyone seemed to talk about was how bad the infotainment system was. While the infotainment system was kinda a dog until you make some settings changes, it was in no sense bad enough to warrant the kind of hysterics that people were having over it. I’ve definitely seen worse systems in other cars I’ve driven - especially considering CarPlay and android auto function perfectly fine and speedy. The car is not above criticism, but it seemed a lot of people were taking his word as gospel and/or becoming obsessed with a fairly minor detail.
I’ve never heard of humane before this and I wasn’t talking about that review specifically, but I’ve seen reviews before (I believe they were phone reviews, but it’s been a while) from MKBHD where I felt some minor thing was being blown out of proportion or where he didn’t seem to understand that some people may appreciate something being done a different way than he expected and therefore I quit watching his videos because they didn’t appeal to me.
In my opinion, both reviewers I’ve mentioned here tend to have some hot takes that garner way too much traction, and I can understand that frustration if you’ve created a product that they then trash. I’m not saying that it’s their intention to do so, but I do think it can be irresponsible to present things the way they do - especially since these reviews remain live much longer than a software cycle might.
Betty_Boopie@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Maybe they underestimate the MPG rating but did you forget the massive diesel scandal? They lied about the efficiency of their engine and exhaust system to the point where they had software counteracting testing procedures.
Do you own an id4 or something? Like why do you care about the public perception of a company? People who actually are in the market for a new car are bound to test drive it first, and they can decide if the infotainment system is good enough for themselves. My point is: lots of talk from people who are nowhere near buying any car let alone a $40k+ id4. If I purely listened to the internet’s opinion I wouldn’t own half the shit I enjoy on a daily basis.
MKBHD and his team are by no means perfect, watch their podcast and you’ll quickly see the gaps in their knowledge. If you haven’t watched him in awhile I can understand you position a lot better. He’s come a long way in the past few years, and while I never found his reviews to be bad, his current work is top quality. For instance: a lot of his smartphone reviews revolve around the camera performance. At the end of the year he does a big comparison between a bunch of phones. Between that and the yearly smartphone awards, I think he does a fine job at summarizing the software improvements over the first year of ownership.
Of course every big content creator has a legion of annoying fans, again LTT almost killed a 2 man company from a single botched video. I’m not here to defend any community, just that these two reviewers that you seem to have a gripe with do better work than 90% of others.