[biztos]

I just made a pretty big purchase decision in a field (cameras) where there is a lot of competition and reviews carry a lot of weight.

In the end, the information that helped me make up my mind was from video reviews by mostly well-known photography vloggers on YouTube.

This is also something that could be messed with by unscrupulous marketers, but there is a strong counterbalance to those anti-patterns: the vloggers themselves are trying to build reputations, because "top photography vlogger" presumably pays better than 99% of all other work that involves photography.

I'm not sure how much this counts as "better objective information" -- other than seeing an object move around in someone's hands you're mostly getting an opinion -- but I found it super helpful and could easily imagine this being the "future of purchase-decision influence" or something like it.

For example here are three channels I used, with radically different styles:

1. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCknMR7NOY6ZKcVbyzOxQPhw

2. https://www.youtube.com/user/christopherfrost

3. https://www.youtube.com/user/JaredPolin

[quasse]

> because "top photography vlogger" presumably pays better than 99% of all other work that involves photography.

Just to be clear though (I work in a field that relies heavily on niche-specifc YouTubers for marketing) - the reason that being a "top niche blogger" pays so well is because companies pay them a lot to encourage favorable opinions of their product lines.

I've seen amounts that are several multiples of my annual salary for fairly small market segment channels - and it's not explicit like "We are hiring you to post positive reviews of our products" because that would need to be disclosed. It's more along the lines of "We are nominally hiring you as a brand ambassador, you will visit our HQ and make a collaboration video". But of course, YouTubers aren't stupid, they're not going to post negative content about brands that are paying them even if it's theoretically for something else.

This is the same problem that PC hardware review magazines had back in the day - companies that purchased a lot of advertising from the parent company just happened to never get negative coverage in review articles. You can't bite the hand that feeds you.

[biztos]

Yeah but aren't these contradictory goals for the "influencer?" At least for the ones who start to catch on?

Canon says "make us look better than Sony" and Sony says "make us look better than Canon" but at least in the stuff I watched, for photography, the really successful people were quite obviously prickly opinionated photo nerds who were not likely to risk their ever-increasing reputation and influence for a bit of payola.

I guess it probably varies a lot based on subject. Travel vloggers are pretty openly corrupt in that sense. And I have long dreamed of being a corrupt restaurant critic...

[dingaling]

Brand outreach in photography is so endemic that I just can't trust any reviews for the first three months or so after a release.

It's only when working photographers get their hands on the product and use it that the real story emerges, but it requires someone to take that risk for the benefit of others.

[FireBeyond]

You're wise to do so.

People believe (speaking of photography / video YouTubers) that Apple generally doesn't give pre-release or demo units to users (except the "inner circle", shall we say - Daring Fireball, etc.).

Odd, then, how a whole bunch of photography vloggers, the vast majority of whom made absolutely no mention of loaner / demo units, promotional consideration, etc, all got launch day Mac Pros.

"Much anticipated", people might argue, so of course they pre-ordered.

Odd. They must have all got together and talked. Because on my YT subscriptions list I counted no less than eight photography vloggers who somehow, coincidentally, managed to get the EXACT same configuration:

The 24 core, 384GB, 4TB, Vega Pro II Duo, with a Pro Display XDR, nano coated.

Now, not only is this an overkill for ANY photography editing, even 100mp medium format, it's also a $25,000 (33 when you count the display).

I'm willing to guarantee that these were all Apple loaner units and that at some point they bought their own with the specs they really wanted, and "subbed it in" to their setup, later.

[sgerenser]

As long as they were actually loaners and not just given to the vloggers I honestly don’t see much of a problem. The vast majority of magazines, for example, would do reviews based on products loaned from the manufacturer (with Consumer Reports being a notable exception). While all else equal a review from someone who shelled out their own money seems more trustworthy, I wouldn’t write off a review just because the product was loaned.

[FireBeyond]

> I wouldn’t write off a review just because the product was loaned.

Neither would I. I _would_ be skeptical of the motivations, be they vanity or otherwise, of a review that _does not disclose_ it as a loaner.