It's a distinction to be sure, but therein lies a rub. I've known folx from magazines that reviewed product but never printed the review. Why? The product failed in testing. A conundrum for em, as they wanted to be honest with readers, but were very well aware of who was paying the bills. The compromise was don't print the review, a product review variation of don't ask, don't tell. Products that functioned got glows, those that failed stayed in the shadows. That is not to say every mag/site has this predilection. My experience with 2 publications is not to be cast onto everyone. In the case of soc med celebrity users, yep, always recognize you are being advertised to in a charming/amazing way.
As far as accessibility of playin' bikes in the woods, solo or with friends, getting access to an 'affordable' old but good bike is only one part of the equation. In most areas you need to transportation to and from the trails, and not every city/county has transportation options to the dirt. And then there's the dirt itself. We're lucky in that we have local options, but there are a lot of places that don't. So again, access. Another bit of access, the availability of used bikes. Some years ago I learned you can get an idea on an area's demographic background by looking at Craigslist ads. Pretty simple: the better off an area is in terms of wages and accessibility, the better the selection of bikes you find on Craig's. The more 'good' bikes you see, the better off financially folx in that area are doing in general. See a bunch of Huffys/Magnas/that ilk, the worse off they are. This was correlated when looking at demographic makeups on a few cities' sites, ones we were looking to move to and others (including ours) we weren't thinking about. Accessibility has many tentacles. I think I may have an economist student's thesis idea.
Jan. 12, 2023, 1:12 p.m. - JT
It's a distinction to be sure, but therein lies a rub. I've known folx from magazines that reviewed product but never printed the review. Why? The product failed in testing. A conundrum for em, as they wanted to be honest with readers, but were very well aware of who was paying the bills. The compromise was don't print the review, a product review variation of don't ask, don't tell. Products that functioned got glows, those that failed stayed in the shadows. That is not to say every mag/site has this predilection. My experience with 2 publications is not to be cast onto everyone. In the case of soc med celebrity users, yep, always recognize you are being advertised to in a charming/amazing way. As far as accessibility of playin' bikes in the woods, solo or with friends, getting access to an 'affordable' old but good bike is only one part of the equation. In most areas you need to transportation to and from the trails, and not every city/county has transportation options to the dirt. And then there's the dirt itself. We're lucky in that we have local options, but there are a lot of places that don't. So again, access. Another bit of access, the availability of used bikes. Some years ago I learned you can get an idea on an area's demographic background by looking at Craigslist ads. Pretty simple: the better off an area is in terms of wages and accessibility, the better the selection of bikes you find on Craig's. The more 'good' bikes you see, the better off financially folx in that area are doing in general. See a bunch of Huffys/Magnas/that ilk, the worse off they are. This was correlated when looking at demographic makeups on a few cities' sites, ones we were looking to move to and others (including ours) we weren't thinking about. Accessibility has many tentacles. I think I may have an economist student's thesis idea.