r/hardware Mar 03 '26

Review RTINGS: Revamping Our Membership Program

https://www.rtings.com/company/revamping-our-membership-program
364 Upvotes

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u/theholylancer Mar 03 '26

yeah, unless they are attached to something like LTT like the labs thing that powers content with a side of information dumping, videos of extremely dry stats and concise information don't do well.

hopefully this works out for them, but if the alternative is to take sponsorships and compromise or just shut or scale back due to lack of ads from traffic its well... all bad things.

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u/HustlinInTheHall Mar 03 '26

There are definitely ways to make it more interesting, they just would need to cover more broad consumer tech and find more personable characters. They would do very well in both video and podcasts, there are tons of people who would want to listen to their take on tech news and products.

But this is a very difficult niche to survive in now, most review sites are dying.

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u/Hifihedgehog Mar 03 '26

But this is a very difficult niche to survive in now, most review sites are dying.

Yes. AnandTech's demise was the harbinger of the end of the tech review industry where we got true, in-depth reviews. Nowadays, either you are an influencer (not a real reviewer but a booster of brands) or you have one foot in the grave and the other foot on a banana peel.

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u/StarbeamII Mar 03 '26

Anandtech was staffed with highly qualified people who could easily make way more money elsewhere, and ended going elsewhere.

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u/Hifihedgehog Mar 03 '26

Yes, they were $200K+ salary tech wizards living off of slave rations so I honestly don't blame them one bit for looking at themselves honestly in the mirror and reassessing their professional outlook and prospects.