dfk41 AN influencer is not paid to do a job. He is earning an income by persuading folks to view his channel.
That IS a job. We can debate endlessly whether it is the sort of job that society should create more or less of, but it is a job.
There have been reviews of equipment by people paid to write (or script) those reviews for several decades - some of these paid reviewers did an excellent job, and some did not. They all had to tread the path of caution: saying too much or in the wrong way would result in no more equipment to review being sent their way.
The openness of modern media to “instant feedback” provides another hurdle for a reviewer to tackle, and you are right that Lance did not acquit himself well in the comments/replies… that doesn’t make a review on YouTube automatically bad, and that was my only comment.
dfk41 Take Hoffman for example. When he does these reviews, how many man hours do you think he plays with them? The Niche was something like 3 years in the R & D stage and evaluated by Dave for months.
I have no idea how long JH spends in preparing a typical review; if anything, the fact that Lance spent a year “with” the Niche was - in my view - a positive, as is a positive that JH came back to the Niche (and other equipment) several times over a long-ish period. I - like all of us - am bombarded with requests for instant feedback for pretty much anything I buy; in most cases, I can’t really leave a review because I haven’t got enough experience with the item to review to make it useful; all I can really rate is whether the seller’s logistical arrangements work, and whether they responded quickly to any initial issues.
On the other hand, it is quite obvious that the designers and makers of an object know and understand it ‘better’ than pretty much any reviewer; however, they have an even more direct interest in expressing positive opinions. Dave is in a somewhat unique position (as far as I know), as he doesn’t make the equipment or benefit from its sales, but is sought after as a consultant, and therefore has access to it for extended periods of time - which is why I read/see everything he says/films about specific machines with great interest and give it a greater weight than the opinion of others with an axe to grind (or a wallet to fill).
dfk41 I am still waiting for Lord of the Rings to come out as a comic (!).
Now that Christopher Tolkien has passed away, everything is possible. Done well, it would probably be a good thing, and I might well be interested in it - I’m not looking forward to 2 September, though.
dfk41 Hendrick in his review, got several things wrong.
Well, you see… this is the part that I’m really interested in, whereas some of the posts here have gone towards slanging Lance as a character “because he monetizes his channel” or “he is a YT influencer”.
He doesn’t particularly like the Niche, that much is clear; but I don’t think we can call this right or wrong: it’s his personal opinion, and he is entitled to it. I do find his account, however, more balanced than you do, and - as far as I can tell, as a non-Niche-owner and a not-coffee-grinding-expert - factually correct: conical burrs will tend to have a broader distribution of particle sizes than flat burrs for a particular setting of distance between the burrs, and that will make the grinder more ‘forgiving’ in principle, to the expense of the ultimate in clarity. Does that make the Niche a bad grinder? Not at all, and that’s not what I heard from LH. Is he making a bigger point than he needs to out of it? Possibly; it doesn’t make it factually incorrect. Could he have said this in 2 minutes rather than 25, and spent time focusing on other aspects (good and bad) of the grinder? Yes, absolutely - but as you say, he is 100% responsible for the content he puts out, and if that doesn’t contribute to build his reputation as a reviewer of coffee-making equipment… so much the worse for him and no-one else.
dfk41 What is the point of glossing over a bad point? The answer is because he is only interested in monetisation and self promotion and not remotely interested in anything to do with reality and the facts.
The only video by Lance Hedrick I have seen is the one posted at the top of this thread. I haven’t heard him glossing over any bad points of the Niche - if anything, he over-emphasised them. I haven’t heard him say anything - outside of legitimate personal opinion - that is not factual or real to the best of my knowledge/understanding.
dfk41 If we are saying that all influencers ought to be treated with kid gloves and what they say taken tongue in cheek, but they are not.
I’m not saying that, and I haven’t heard anyone else on this thread saying it either. What I have said is that ad-hominem attacks are seldom productive, and never justified.
dfk41 If you can waste a few minutes, listen to this clip by Gerald Pauschman
I did (and I don’t count it as “wasted time” - I’ll show it to my teenagers this evening, so thank you) - but I fail to see the relevance. The fact that one young entitled lady feels that she can offer her social media influence in exchange for free accommodation (and sees no moral wrong in that, but is taken aback when someone exposes her naive machinations) is no evidence that all YouTube or Instagram content producers operate this way, or specifically that Lance Hedrick does.
As an aside - I find it interesting that someone like the ‘influencer for sale’ exists only thanks to social media - but it is the same social media that is their downfall.
