The Wirecutter
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The Wirecutter (part of The New York Times Company) is lists of the best gadgets and gear for people who quickly want to know what to get.
Cost / License
- Free
- Proprietary
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Platforms
- Online
Features
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What is The Wirecutter?
The Wirecutter information
Developed by
thewirecutter Licensing
Proprietary and Free product.Rating
Average rating of 4.3Alternatives
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Comments and Reviews
Wirecutter has gone downhill since its purchase by the New York Times. The new Wirecutter both charges a subscription ($40 / year or $5 / month) and takes a commission on the products that they review. Compare this to the old Wirecutter, for which another reviewer on AlternativeTo, @sondrak, wrote, "[N]o subscription required." Or compare this to Consumer Reports –– which has never taken any commissions or advertising. The New York Times wants its readers to pay twice.
At the top of each guide on Wirecutter, I see a search box with an animation. The text in the animation changes, "Show me the research on...", "How can we help?" "Help me decide on..." etc. Nobody likes animations distracting us from reading. I wrote to the New York Times, but they have ignored my email for a month. Their autoresponder says, "[W]e can’t always respond. [...] We know sending messages like these can feel like shouting into a void[.]"
The political leanings of the New York Times have biased the editorial judgment of Wirecutter. Sometimes they explicitly recommend products because they come from black-owned businesses. To a liberal, this is affirmative action, but to a conservative, this is technically racism. Either way, skin color != product quality. Can anyone recommend an alternative?
Another issue, the commenting feature requires third-party cookies: "Comments are disabled because they require cookies and you’ve opted out of cookies for this site."
What Happened to Wirecutter? Longtime fans have turned against the product-recommendation website. An evolving internet may be to blame.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/08/wirecutter-recommendations-worse-new-york-times/675075/
Thorough reviews and careful testing, with no subscription required. Easy to find the best quickly.
The Wirecutter does a great job of utilizing the inverted pyramid style from journalism. Its competitors are generally awful, full of fluff and constantly burying the lede. Note that the Wirecutter makes money through referral links through retailers (mostly Amazon), although it doesn't take money from manufacturers.