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Twenty Up

Active Member
Joined
Jul 6, 2016
Messages
130
Location
Central GA
Forwarning this is a semi-rant, not meant to bash anyone but to emphasize safety.

It’s pretty cool watching all the new saddle products get released. Seems like yesterday we were still modding our sit drags and XOP seats into platforms.

We’ve come a long way and I’m proud of that, but it’s coming at a cost. Some new products have inherent safety issues. The people and companies testing these products are not being honest or addressing safety issues.

We pay good money to buy the lightest, most compact hunting gear available. We use this gear to walk further and hunt harder than the general public, oftentimes on remote tracts of public land. These places have limited cell phone service and are generally hard to access. A simple failure could easily cost someone their life.

Safety should be paramount, especially for the mobile hunter. We need to put sponsorships and brand biases aside when it comes to our lives.

End rant. Stay safe.
 
The problem is the HYPE. Certain companies are way shortcutting the iterative design/test and rushing the hype/scale/sell stage of product development and then sorta kinda fixing issues with band aids and subsequent product generations. I suspect they may be overly relying on engineering specs to the sacrifice of real world usage. It's quite frankly unacceptable to me as a consumer to pay to be a freaking guinea pig. Those companies and all their youtube pimps can go pound sand, I'll find stuff somewhere else.
 
Everyone likes to complain about it. But the fact of the matter is checks keep rolling in.

Private truths, public lies.

Maybe the current approach is not a good one, and long term it will hurt the bottom line. But until people stop trampling each other to hand over their money, it's hard to make that argument.
 
Forwarning this is a semi-rant, not meant to bash anyone but to emphasize safety.

It’s pretty cool watching all the new saddle products get released. Seems like yesterday we were still modding our sit drags and XOP seats into platforms.

We’ve come a long way and I’m proud of that, but it’s coming at a cost. Some new products have inherent safety issues. The people and companies testing these products are not being honest or addressing safety issues.

We pay good money to buy the lightest, most compact hunting gear available. We use this gear to walk further and hunt harder than the general public, oftentimes on remote tracts of public land. These places have limited cell phone service and are generally hard to access. A simple failure could easily cost someone their life.

Safety should be paramount, especially for the mobile hunter. We need to put sponsorships and brand biases aside when it comes to our lives.

End rant. Stay safe.
its almost safer to diy your own stuff.atleast then you know what you are getting.without the diy guys this site wouldnt exist.your post is less of a rant than it is just a fact
 
The more I think about it the more I just absolutely despise a lot of these youtube hunters that "review" something in exchange for a good review. Like I somewhat see why a manufacturer would rush product to market, and that will come back to bite them someday. I hope for their families sake their lawyers built a freaking airtight corporate veil, because the 'suits will come when not if and that's happening even with a good, tested product. A shoddy one...good luck! But the youtube pimpers are just incredibly yucky, like sell your soul for what even? Like you have to have less self worth than a porn star for some of this stuff in the youtube prostaffer underworld.
 
I have more trust in a review from someone that doesn't have any skin in the game and gives their honest opinion. Hard to find when most YouTubers try to turn it into a full-time gig and get sponsored. I understand people want to get paid but you kind of lose your credibility at that point. Same way with fishing channels. They seem to all sell out at some point and start pimping junk rods/reels and overpriced lures.
 
I have more trust in a review from someone that doesn't have any skin in the game and gives their honest opinion. Hard to find when most YouTubers try to turn it into a full-time gig and get sponsored. I understand people want to get paid but you kind of lose your credibility at that point. Same way with fishing channels. They seem to all sell out at some point and start pimping junk rods/reels and overpriced lures.
Same as it ever was.
 
Everyone likes to complain about it. But the fact of the matter is checks keep rolling in.

Private truths, public lies.

Maybe the current approach is not a good one, and long term it will hurt the bottom line. But until people stop trampling each other to hand over their money, it's hard to make that argument.
Amen i express that same thing all the time
 
I
Same as it ever was.
have no problem with sponsors or affiliatation. But when you review the product dont do it when unboxing. Do it when you used it 15-20 times in real world situations.
i did my lwcg review on my 1.0 after i think 15 sits. My treehopper saddles after 15 or so sits.
by then i really think you will know if its good stuff or not.
i think alot of tubers try to get the reviews out before anyone else to try get the jump and get more views and subs. Thsts the problem or the most of it
 
I have more trust in a review from someone that doesn't have any skin in the game and gives their honest opinion. Hard to find when most YouTubers try to turn it into a full-time gig and get sponsored. I understand people want to get paid but you kind of lose your credibility at that point. Same way with fishing channels. They seem to all sell out at some point and start pimping junk rods/reels and overpriced lures.
I've beat my head against this little problem for a couple of years. I did a few reviews. Folks liked them. It was fun. Folks asked for more videos. Gear is expensive. So you monetize the channel because gear to review, camera gear, and time aren't free. I actually started a thread asking if folks would consider donating through Patreon or something to fund a channel and keep it bias free. The answer was generally "nope".

People tolerate ads but the market isn't really big enough to support the thousands of dollars you'd need to just to buy the gear. People hate sponsorships because then you're biased. Nobody wants to pay, but they want an independent reviewer who uses gear hard to use lots of gear for a long time and then make a quality video. 3 ways to get that. You pay somebody, luck out randomly when the perfect guy does it for one item and probably never again, or you let somebody else pay him.

It's kinda funny. Provide value and ask for value in return and you're just doing it for money. But really, if you look at the input va output, nobody in their right mind looks at the hunting industry as a whole and says, "Here's where I'll make my fortune." I could fire up the ps4 3 nights a week and make more drinking beer and yelling at a video game than I'll ever make as your friendly neighborhood Nutterbuster. Which isn't saying much, but still. For most guys its a love>money thing. I just dont know anybody who loves it so much that they'll do a good job for free. I know I won't. I'll do it for less than I'd do other things, but bills gotta be paid and if I'm just doing something for fun it's not gonna be something anybody but me benefits from. I'm selfish I guess.

I guess I would just say to the guys who don't like the current system, is it something you have no interest in at all regardless of what it looks like or is there a specific something you have in mind that would make it better?
 
I've beat my head against this little problem for a couple of years. I did a few reviews. Folks liked them. It was fun. Folks asked for more videos. Gear is expensive. So you monetize the channel because gear to review, camera gear, and time aren't free. I actually started a thread asking if folks would consider donating through Patreon or something to fund a channel and keep it bias free. The answer was generally "nope".

People tolerate ads but the market isn't really big enough to support the thousands of dollars you'd need to just to buy the gear. People hate sponsorships because then you're biased. Nobody wants to pay, but they want an independent reviewer who uses gear hard to use lots of gear for a long time and then make a quality video. 3 ways to get that. You pay somebody, luck out randomly when the perfect guy does it for one item and probably never again, or you let somebody else pay him.

It's kinda funny. Provide value and ask for value in return and you're just doing it for money. But really, if you look at the input va output, nobody in their right mind looks at the hunting industry as a whole and says, "Here's where I'll make my fortune." I could fire up the ps4 3 nights a week and make more drinking beer and yelling at a video game than I'll ever make as your friendly neighborhood Nutterbuster. Which isn't saying much, but still. For most guys its a love>money thing. I just dont know anybody who loves it so much that they'll do a good job for free. I know I won't. I'll do it for less than I'd do other things, but bills gotta be paid and if I'm just doing something for fun it's not gonna be something anybody but me benefits from. I'm selfish I guess.

I guess I would just say to the guys who don't like the current system, is it something you have no interest in at all regardless of what it looks like or is there a specific something you have in mind that would make it better?
Nutter, I think you're as honest as you can be. The look on your face for the screen shot with "that saddle" is worth a million words...
 
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