By the way, and I understand this is mostly about the joke. But getting a good bike helmet is really important, and there are reasons to buy a new one like every 4-5 years.
Virginia Tech does extensive independent testing of bike helmets every year, really worth looking into if you’re going to buy one.
AI ruined google , it so sad to see the current state of the internet ... there used to be so many articles with real effort being put in written by people with real passion for their field of knowledge .... now if you want a genuine answer either you have to reddit it or search for a article written by a genuinely knowledgeable person (which is very hard as they get often burried upon by AI writen shit articles)
Good cycling infrastructure works better than any helmet, if you're cycling with a helmet, don't forget getting involved in trying to make your area more cycle safe, too.
Then there's the one or two sites where actual experts spend time and effort to review things in a thorough and unbiased way mixed in with 20+ review sites that look like they're legit ones but have no expertise, spend no effort on reviewing, and are just there to earn money from ads and affiliate links.
Unless you're an expert, or you spend a lot of time and effort, you don't know which sites are legit reviews and which just look legit. If you are an expert, you probably don't need the sites.
What makes / made Reddit valuable is that there were communities where experts hung out and posted opinions, not because they were getting paid, just because they were interested in the subject. Not being paid was a double-edged sword though. It means that the person isn't biased by money or trying to earn a commission. OTOH it meant that they had no incentive to be objective, to be helpful, and so-on.
It meant that one dude who had had a bad experience with a windslapper was motivated to bring up their bad experience whenever the subject came up, but wasn't motivated to post to actually provide well-rounded advice when people were just asking about helmet recommendations.
It doesn't help that any attempt to create a "seal of legitimacy" or something for a review site is always co-opted by the brands who have a vested interest in moving their own product.
There was a good article (maybe video?) posted not too long ago about how Google search results came to suck I wish I could find.
I think it essentially came down to ad revenue and websites tailoring their content to fit Google's algorithm.
Very annoying. Even the old tip of adding the word Reddit to get results from real people is annoying these days because of how they try to push you to login.
Edit: this was the article
https://www.theverge.com/23846048/google-search-memes-images-pagerank-altavista-seo-keywords
Feels like most top results are chatgpt now, doesn't matter what you search for. The top result when I was looking for an estimated cost of fencing had a paragraph telling itself to describe the costs and blah blah
Sometimes you get lucky and there’s a recent Wirecutter article but then of course the top options are all sold out or not available where you live.
Yeah. I just bought an espresso machine and the above was my exact experience shopping around. Hundreds of reddit posts about how I really need to drop $5000, MINIMUM, to make a good cup of anything that isn't shit. And to not forget that I need a $2000 grinder to go with it or I might as well just buy a nespresso and call it a day.
Ahh yes, the downside of using Jerboa. Sometimes it doesn't like certain images and doesn't let them view you. Even worse: tried opening the post in my web browser and it refused to show as well!
The things I do for not being on r€ddit anymore...
Edit: Copied thumbnail link and it works. I'm an absolute dipshit.
That’s when I search on Lemmy, Reddit, YouTube, or Looria. Worst case, I ask Bing Chat to find some recommendations and reviews for me.
"why do you need a helmet just don't bike?"
