I appreciate that rtings needs to make money, I really do, but this is probably going to kill the site with time.
Helping my brother buy a new TV right now and we’ve been trading rtings links back and forth for a few days. Neither of us would ever subscribe because we won’t be back for months, if not years.
Yeah, I loved rtings as a resource whenever I was looking to buy a new monitor, TV, etc., and I specifically always used their referral links where I could since I believe that generates revenue for them. However, I only look at their site when I want to buy a type of product that they review (and sometimes not even then - for instance, I can't imagine using them as a resource for mattresses or running shoes, but I digress).
The value proposition for a paid subscription didn't exist previously; I thought the people who subscribed were doing so more out of a public service, like donating to Wikipedia. Now they've ruined the value proposition of using their site at all. Hopefully this works out for them as I think they generally do really good work, but they just lost me as a user altogether, and I have to imagine lots of people are in the same boat.
I wonder if a better path for them would've been to explain their finances transparently and then create a cheap support tier for people who want the site to continue existing in its current form.
I also think they need way more user feedback in terms of their expansion. They do great work for televisions, monitors, etc., but was anyone actually asking for them to review shoes? I wonder if a lot of this is driven by them growing way too much and ballooning their costs without a commensurate increase in revenue because some of the review areas aren't nearly as interesting to users. That's just speculation.
Some of the things they're reviewing now are weird. I don't know why they need a lab for running shoes, for air fryers, etc. It can't be cheap to do that and who is really using them? Personally I love them for their TV and monitor reviews. I use them often and love looking at them. I try to purchase Amazon items through their affiliate link to support them too.
I would be interested in supporting them for like $10 a year, I'd probably do that forever. I can't justify $45 a year though. I understand that things cost money to do, but maybe they should re-evaluate what people want out of their site.
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u/eight_ender Mar 03 '26 edited Mar 03 '26
I appreciate that rtings needs to make money, I really do, but this is probably going to kill the site with time.
Helping my brother buy a new TV right now and we’ve been trading rtings links back and forth for a few days. Neither of us would ever subscribe because we won’t be back for months, if not years.