Are there any reviewers on YouTube/Rumble/etc. or independent blogs that don’t post affiliate links, aren’t sponsored by the printer company, or had one sent out by the company? Those to me all seem like a conflict of interest.
Yes people need to make money, I’m not blind to that, but they can advertise other things that aren’t a direct conflict of interest.
I’m looking to get my first printer and would like to get info from an unbiased source. I just don’t know enough to weed through the million 3D printer channels.
The Sovol SV06 Ace seems nice with little research as it is large enough to print the project I have in mind and uses open source firmware (Klipper) which is a must for me.
Reviewers without ANY potential conflict of interest don’t exist (and if you are even considering “Rumble” as something to trust… holy shit).
But also? Nobody has zero conflict of interest. Especially once they get into the “media” side of things. because you are going to meet employees of companies (or have colleagues become employees) and it is inherently going to shade things. I don’t like that Intel are dangerously close to circling the drain because one of my best friends from grad school works there. But also? I have a few people who work at a company that my firm does business with and we get drinks together when I fly out to visit.
But also? That is kind of what journalism(-adjacent) work is. Just because I have drinks with Fred and Sally doesn’t mean I am going to give them a pass for not meeting a deliverable or price gouging us. Similarly, I am not going to buy an intel processor just because a buddy of mine works on their compiler.
What matters is actually looking at how an outlet reviews things and how transparent they are with their biases and policies.
In the 3d printing space? I recently bought a new printer. The outlets that I genuinely trust are Teaching Tech and Maker’s Muse as both of them are very transparent on their review policies and have a good track record of reviewing things. I ALSO just did some youtube browsing to get close ups of aspects of the printer I was not sure about or to see what happens if you print on a stable surface (I love Angus but someone needs to take that table away from him…).
And if the extent of your research is asking randos on the internet to search for you? I recommend reading up on how prevalent astroturfing is and the cases of even “established” social media accounts being purchased/rented to post FUD. Because it isn’t just consumers who learned they can search “best doorknob reddit” to get a “better” answer… And while Lemmy is too small to really care about… it is also trivial to do this kind of stuff on.