I tried every top email marketing tool

I appreciate that the author disclosed it, but the reason they went to all this effort is likely that they expect to make money as an affiliate for the platforms that they recommended.

Affiliate-driven reviews introduce a major bias into the author's opinion, as they have incentive to speak more positively about platforms that are likely to pay the most.

And email marketing platforms pay a lot in affiliate fees. Just scanning some of the recommendations, if someone signs up for MailerLite through this reviewer's link, they'll pay the reviewer 30% of that subscriber's fees forever.[0] I wouldn't be surprised if the reviewer's top pick is coincidentally the platform with the highest-paying affiliate program.

The thing that really woke me up to affiliate-influenced reviews was the 2017 article, "The War To Sell You A Mattress Is An Internet Nightmare."[1] The reporter figured out that top YouTube mattress reviewers just gave positive reviews to whichever company paid the most in affiliate fees, and when one company lowered their fees, the reviewers retroactively downranked them for contrived reasons.

[0] https://www.mailerlite.com/affiliate

[1] https://www.fastcompany.com/3065928/sleepopolis-casper-blogg...

Op here. I sort of agree but all these tools offer affiliate programs and I can assure you we chose MailerLite because we think it’s a tool we can use for 5-10 years.

That being said: besides running a startup (Atlist.com) I also run an affiliate site (it’s how we funded Atlist) and I would agree there is good reason to read affiliate websites skeptically. I regularly receive offers from website builders to “buy” the top spot in my best website builder roundup. https://www.sitebuilderreport.com/best-website-builder

When all "The Best" sites have the affiliate blob, and "The Rest" doesn't, haha. My god is this a plague on the internet.

I believe there's a strong case for all articles containing a hash (MD5, etc) in the URL a la Bluesky, or verifiable meta data (easily verifiable, like the browser bar padlock for HTTPS), even blockchain, to show something's been edited.

I see these same affiliate listicles every time I try to find software for any use case these days. Basically every Saas category has now turned into a giant affiliate marketing cesspool. Doesn't matter if it's GPT-written blogspam on Google search or highly produced "creator" content on Youtube...it's all the same motivation behind the content: buy via my link.

As much as people hated the display advertising common on the old internet, I'd actually argue this is far worse.

Instead of clear delineation between what's an ad and what's content, combining the two together just creates even more sinister incentives. Even the most good-hearted, honest and trustworthy "creators" can't escape those incentives over time. I've seen so many of my favorite creators head down that path I just expect it at this point.

Even the formerly trustworthy Wirecutter has lost its reliability post-NYT acquisition, clearly favoring products that offer affiliate payouts.

> I wouldn't be surprised if the reviewer's top pick is coincidentally the platform with the highest-paying affiliate program.

Do we know if that is the case?

Curiously, all the "best" apps have an affiliate link, and all the "rest" don't.

Draw your own conclusions.

coughwirecuttercough

Op here.

That’s not even true! Loops is in “the best” and if doesnt have an affiliate link.

All “the rest” have affiliate programs too… I was just lazy to sign up for them.

Not everything is a conspiracy. The reality in this case is more mundane.

Op here.

That’s not even true! Loops is in “the best” and if doesnt have an affiliate link.

All “the rest” have affiliate programs too… I was just lazy to sign up for them.

Not everything is a conspiracy. The reality in this case is more mundane.

Op here. I can assure this is not the case.

And it’s not as simple as cross-checking their public affiliate offers because these types of companies are always offering higher, private payouts (in exchange for editorial control).

Instead of criticizing my article, you’re criticizing me.

Does the content of my article seem dishonest?

I agree affiliate content should be read skeptically but you also have to be realistic: why would anyone go to all this work if not for some financial incentive?

He does not critize you. He criticizes making reviews financed by affiliate links.

Their comment seems much more directed at the incentives and outcomes of affiliate/content marketing than it does at you personally, so it’s weird to pretend it’s a personal attack.

Especially when you underscore the incentive issues with your closing question: if the only reason you can imagine going to the effort of a substantial review is financial incentive, that in itself is a pretty good criticism.

I wasn’t criticizing you specifically, but yes, your article does seem dishonest.

Your evaluation criteria was downright silly (1), you didn’t actually try most of these tools, and your “top pick” has the highest affiliate payout (and longest affiliate window) on the list.

In fact, I have no idea how this article hasn’t been flagged since low quality affiliate listicles generally don’t make the front page here.

(1) Strict pricing models and not supporting web fonts like Inter are features, not bugs. Cheap platforms have crap quality shared IPs and 70%+ of inboxes (including most Gmail/outlook clients) don’t support web fonts at all. You’re designing something nobody will see correctly: https://www.caniemail.com/features/css-at-font-face/

>why would anyone go to all this work if not for some financial incentive?

People die for altruistic causes. I don't think its unheard of for people to run websites for fun or fame.

I was going to post exactly this. Sketchy review indeed.

Shouldn’t you focus full-time on Altist instead of affiliate marketing?

This seems an actual interesting product.

I made a review with affiliate links.

You’re suggesting a realistic outcome is people running software review sites for fun or fame?

This is an article outlining my subjective experience. My criteria is not silly — it’s based off of my experience with Mailchimp.

I don’t want an email marking tool that:

• Charged overage fees • Uses dark patterns to charge me more

He’s not criticizing me he’s criticizing my incentives. Sure. You’re being pedantic, but sure.

I’m suggesting a more productive argument would criticize the substance of my article — not my incentives.

Similarly where do you feel like Elon, another entrepreneur should focus, Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, the AI thing, being a bully on X?

Should we police the bandwidth of every founder?

This is completely ridiculous dude, Op you are so critical of everyone else trying to make a buck don't you think there should be a bloody big disclaimer/ acknowledgement about your own twisted incentives there.

Ohhhh and on this step we eliminated all the companies that don't have an affiliate program.. hmm but we'll say it's because they don't have feature x....

And you wouldn't know this incentive until it was through comments here.

The listicle tried to paint every other company making money as a scourge and the op as the only good guy trying to find the best deal for users when ophas the most corrupt incentives since those incentives are not even documented in a bloody helpdesk article somewhere.

ITS THE FIRST LINE OF THE PAGE!

Name one thing inaccurate in my article. Happy to update it if you can!

LOOK AT THE FIRST SENTENCE ON THE PAGE!!!

Give it a rest. I have no idea how HN is allowing you to post these many "responses" to people's criticism of an article you posted without throttling you for spamming. 20% of all the comments on this article right now are yours and you're taking mostly very uncharitable interpretations of peoples' comments.

Its not even you being criticized - it's the general blog spam listacle.

Now, I'm gonna criticize you for a) not understanding the point up thread and b) taking the general comment too personally.

Thanks for the assurance.

Show us the numbers.

There are two people.

One is a good person. One is a bad person.

BOTH people are distorted by the wrong incentives.

It is NOT a question of being pedantic. They're literally not criticizing you when they criticize your incentives. I think this critique is from a board with relatively high percentage of systems-type thinkers.

Just add a disclaimer that this article contains affiliate links.

I think we will be all happy with just that.

And, it’s the law im Canada: https://competition-bureau.canada.ca/deceptive-marketing-pra...

In fairness to OP, that is the first line on the page.

>My work is supported by affiliate commissions. Learn More

OP does disclose this more clearly than 95% of other sites, most of whom omit the notice entirely or bury it after the article content.

Don't pretend that the positioning and font aren't both chosen to minimize the likelihood that people see and read that line. At least without violating legal disclosure requirements.

It needs to be clearer, inline the article as we have all missed it.

Naming affiliated businesses also seem to be part of that Canadian law.

While I think (as others say) we should not police op's time, I would like to know what is the reasoning the used when choosing between focusing and not having all your eggs in one basket.

I think arguments by people making these choices would be very educational to me (as a person with a bit of a scatterd brain).

I never bloody saw it , until it was pointed out in the comments here.

We're saying that after every single recommendation you should make it bloody clear that you are profiting from this and how much? So people can make the independent decision about whether your 'reasearxh' is to be trusted or thrown in the garbage like it is.

We recommend software products too but don't hide behind euphemisms and hide our commissions.

This is anecdotal but

- A company I worked for wanted to be 100% focused on doing one thing. It was spending 10x more than it was making revenue. It went bankrupt.

- Another company I worked for always insisted on not having all eggs in one basket. There was one big revenue maker that dwarfed the others though. The company is still around and doing well.

I have quite a scattered brain too so I get the appeal of "choosing to focus". But looking others do it I see the risks : refusing to experiment and learn new stuff, or find new opportunities.

EDIT: I'd like to add that focusing or not focusing is not a useful dichotomy, it's more about finding the right "exploration vs exploitation" balance.

Yet you felt the need to come post it to HN to give it a boost. It’s not like you wrote it in good faith and it organically found its way here. This is pure and simple the exact kind of content that drips of bias and deserves all the skepticism it’s receiving here in the comments.

And weirdly the dude is asking his staff to work "80+ hour weeks" on his alt account:

https://x.com/cb_doge/status/1858177342436233511

OP, you get no peer to convincing people by yelling at them. Take the feedback and move on.

Probably he should focus on seeing a therapist and repairing his relationship with his kid

Most people don’t make reviews for a living because they can’t afford to do so.

Can you not separate what you do from who you are? Are you defined as a person who makes reviews with affiliate links?

This is silly. Do you have a job where you make a paycheck? Would you spend the same amount of time doing what you do at your job for the company that employs you if they didn’t pay you?

If not, then you also would not put in a bunch of work on anything simply for fun or fame

One might take a moment to consider why the best sites run on affiliate revenue and the rest no longer exist or have been bought up by giant corporations.