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This was posted on the consumerist website on Monday, October 30:
This is our last post on Consumerist.com. We're deeply proud of all the work we've done on behalf of consumers, from exposing shady practices by secretive cable companies to pushing for action against dodgy payday lenders.
We've had a tremendous run as a standalone site. Now you'll be able to get the same great coverage of consumer issues as part of Consumer Reports, our parent organization.
Since they've defeated those secretive cable companies and payday lenders, I guess they had nothing left to do...
Additional coverage at the New York Post entitled "Consumerist site shuts down after alleged mismanagement".
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @06:22PM (3 children)
Corruption is taking a very firm foothold, talk about the warning signs of a downfall. I bet it is approaching Mafia levels of violence and corruption, "shut down that site or the puppy gets it!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @06:24PM (2 children)
or you have no evidence and "Consumerist site shuts down after alleged mismanagement"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @06:43PM (1 child)
Right cause "stop reporting on us or else" is really how someone would quietly shut down a site. I have zero evidence aside from the ever increasing trajectory of corruption in the US, paired with the interesting timing with the Net Neutrality Neutering Project.
To be clear I am NOT saying this is 100% what is happening, as I said no evidence, but it is something to keep in mind. If you don't think shit like this is happening pretty frequently then I have a slightly used but superbly engineered bridge you might be interested in.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @07:00PM
Will the bridge employ people in my district? If so, I'll have the money guy contact you. Don't worry about the cost, we've got it covered.
- Anonymous Congressman
(Score: 5, Informative) by jmorris on Wednesday November 01 2017, @08:58PM (3 children)
Consumer Reports isn't shutting down, just a .com spinoff they thought could sustain itself independently through donations. It couldn't. CR seems to be able to operate on a subscription model and has done so for quite some time, the Internet ain't the same thing. And they were giving away the content with zero ads so they needed a lot of people to hit the tip jar, which people on the Internet really aren't accustomed to doing yet.
And it is probably time to end all non-profit tax exemptions. Look at this thing's legal chain of custody. Consumerist.com is owned by Consumer Media LLC, which is a subsidiary of Consumer Reports, which is a non-profit tax exempt operation. How many levels of corporation should a "charity" be organized into? How much money runs through it, how many Proggies making serious bank, all 100% tax exempt. End it all, churches too. Everybody pays.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @02:06AM
Sure, make churches pay taxes. Sounds great to me (a post-theological AC), but has a snowballs chance in hell of going anywhere. Sheesh, talk about impractical dreams, that about takes the cake.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @02:24PM (1 child)
but why mention consumer reports is not shutting down if no one actually claimed it did; at least not in the summary. the summary even quotes the consumerist as stating the same info will be made available at the consumer reports website.
The summary clearly states the consumerist is being closed by consumer reports. why make a point to refute a claim no one made, and is without question not something requiring clarification by your statement that CR isn't shutting down?
i don't understand why you say that. the rest is good and so thank you for that info, but i can't rate you at -1 irrelevant and +1 informative at the same time
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @04:05PM
Not the GP, but I can see two reasons. One is that the similar name and combined ownership might make one thing that it is both. The second is that Consumer Reports is having widely publicized problems itself, so the idea of Consumer Reports going out of business wouldn't surprise me.
However, the real reason I see for Consumerist closing is because they are trying to drive traffic to their website so they can push a CRO subscription. They need more of those to stay alive, as their magazine subscriptions are going down). Well, I'm not paying $3 per month for reviews on your website, especially since the last few I looked at appear to be just shitty comparisons of 5 models or have dates from years ago. And I don't even know how much a magazine subscription is, as the website doesn't tell you but the magazine is just full of the same stories from the CR website, but a month or two later and with the same shitty reviews from CRO, but barely searchable and without access to the reviews online.
(Score: 5, Informative) by donkeyhotay on Wednesday November 01 2017, @09:01PM (5 children)
There's no need to dream up conspiracy theories. Consumer Reports has been losing readership, subscriptions and therefore money for a while now. I even canceled my subscription. There were several reasons: The first was that I hardly used the service. Their reviews were too few and far between. Since retailers custom name the models they sell, and since they change the model numbers frequently, it was hard to figure out which review went to which product. CR's reviews were unreliable. Too often I would purchase a "best buy" item, only to have it break after a short period of time. Finally, CR sends out EVERY email message with the subject line "An Important Message from Consumer Reports", and nearly every email was a plea for donations. I was already a subscriber. Why do they keep hitting me up for money? It just got to be too tiresome.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @09:59PM
An Important Message from Consumer Reports
Ah the same method sirus radio uses. Out of the thousands they have sent me only 1 was worth reading.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @01:04AM
Ah yes, because vital aspects of human civilization are obviously easily monetized. I mean if no one wants to subscribe to a regular dose then it isn't worth doing right?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by optotronic on Thursday November 02 2017, @02:30AM (1 child)
I am a Consumer Reports fan. I have subscribed to the print magazine for decades, and to the online service for many years.
There have been some problems in the last couple years, such as: the use of slang and poor grammar in the print magazine, manufacturers figuring out how to make a product test well and last just long enough for the review to be printed, removing the date from the cover of the magazine (recently restored, fortunately), and too much print space used for pointless pictures.
However, they buy all the products they review and are therefore not beholden to anyone for the product rating. They provide the best rating and reliability information on automobiles. They provide the only useful reviews I've seen on interior and exterior house paint. They provide the most comprehensive product reviews I've seen for any products they review, with the possible exception of the computer and printer reviews in PC Magazine in their heyday. They also review home, auto, and health insurance, with less frequency and less breadth.
I wish they could do more with reliability information for most products. Autos are well covered. I recognize that most products these days have a short shelf life and if they waited to see how long they lasted the information might be useless by the time it was published. Still, there is probably room for improvement in large appliances and some other products. For shorter lived products, perhaps they could follow up on recently reviewed products more frequently.
I still find significant value in Consumer Reports and expect to subscribe for many more years.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @04:20AM
> They provide the best rating and reliability information on automobiles.
Personally, I'm a fan (and early member) of this relative newcomer, https://www.truedelta.com/ [truedelta.com] for reliability data.
The webmaster is pretty sharp with statistics and always publishes the sample sizes, along with a lot of supporting data and comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @06:14AM
Why didn't you unsubscribe from the e-mails?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @02:31AM
They say [archiveteam.org] "Archive Team can always be reached by e-mail at archiveteam@archiveteam.org or by IRC at the #archiveteam channel on EFnet."