Originally posted by: xeemzor
Originally posted by: mugs
consumerist.com
That seems like an odd choice. Sure, they might be overbearing at times, but I think the services they provide(consumer awareness) far outweigh any negatives. Why did you pick them?
Companies like Monster and Bose are all about profit. I don't fault them for that - I just don't buy their products. Consumerist is malicious. Their intent is to embarrass companies and make people hate them -
and they don't even care if the stories they post are true. If they did, they would do some basic fact checking. They cause undeserved damage to companies' reputations, and
they don't care. They use tactics that border are extortion and cross the line of harassment.
Secondly, they pass themselves off as knowledgeable about things that they clearly only googled. They're not experts on consumer issues, they're learning as they go along just like their readers. Because of this, they're dangerous when they try to give people advice. They're pseudo-journalists, but they don't hold themselves to the same ethics that journalists do - or any ethics at all.
They serve a purpose, but they do it
terribly. They have the attitude that every company is evil and poorly run (ironic for a blog that was unprofitable and would have been shut down had it not been bought by Consumer Union). I don't know how anyone can live their life with such a negative attitude toward
everything. And what's worse, I think their readers start to develop the same attitude after reading Consumerist.com for a while. So yeah, I think Consumerist.com has an overall negative effect on the world.