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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: 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.