The first time I used Consumer Reports was probably when I bought my first car. In 1990 I was moving off of campus at college, and having a car would be handy for running errands and buying groceries and such. My Mom had a big stack of Consumer Reports in a cabinet in the living room (along with many, many women’s glamour and housekeeping magazines, plus a fair number of New Yorkers). While I was technically online in 1990, this was before the World Wide Web, so there were few online resources for buying things. Consumer Reports was basically the gold standard of independent consumer review publications. Its information made me decide that the best car for me in my price range (well, my mother’s price range, as she was technically buying the car) was a Honda or Toyota, which were the two most reliable brands. I ended up buying a light blue 1987 Honda Civic hatchback from Acura of Boston (which is still there!) for a whopping $5,000. I kept that car for 9 years across four states before selling it for $500 and replacing it with… a 2000 Honda Civic.
Sometime in the 1990s I subscribed to Consumer Reports myself, thumbing through each issue. I kept 3-4 years of issues at a time, recycling the older issues at the end of each year. It came in handy, and sometime in the late 2000s I decided to take advantage of an offer of theirs and extended my subscription for ten years.
Consumer Reports has not had a great decade, though. Its reporting on computers and other high tech has always been iffy at best, but its reports about the iPhone 4 “Antennagate” controversy led me to completely disregard their reporting in tech. But more significantly, the proliferation of online review sites (The Wirecutter at the high end, but a dizzying assortment of specialized sites for almost everything you can want to buy is also out there) has reduced its value significantly.
My long-running subscription expired with the October 2020 issue, and I decided not to renew it. While I still flipped through it every month and sometimes found something interesting or useful, that was happening less and less. I imagine Generation X will be the last generation which reliably subscribes to Consumer Reports – and we’re a small generation. I have no idea how much revenue they get from their online presence – it could be a lot, for all I know! – but if they’re still primarily relying on their print arm for revenue, they’ve probably got 20-30 years of life left, unless something radically changes in the world.
Anyway, maybe it’s time for my fourth go-round of subscribing to The New Yorker. It’s much more of a time commitment to read, but I bet I’ll get more out of it.
When I was in high school I strongly considered donating enough $ to Consumer Reports to earn a lifetime subscription. I can’t remember how much it was. ¿Maybe $1000?
I let my subscription lapse a few years ago because I wasn’t using it much. If I really want to see what they recommend, I have friends/family I can lean on.
One thing I’ve found is that when they review things I’m pretty familiar with, I almost always find quibbles with their testing methodology. I assume there are semi-experts out there who have quibbles when they review things I don’t know very well but, since I don’t know about them, I think CR is better than nothing.
We’re thinking of replacing a toilet or two in our house, and I’m sort of waiting for CR to review them again before doing so. Toilets are one of those things I don’t know much about.
That’s funny, last month I subscribed purely to get toilet reviews, and what they had was crappy, no pun intended, so I immediately cancelled.
I am a long time reader of CR, but it has changed! Consumer Reports used to be so interesting and valuable with their easy-to-read ranking of new products, and detailed analysis if priducts. Sadly, I no longer look forward to getting a new issue if CR, and I definitely am not renewing my subscription unless some improvements are made. Something terrible has happened! I would strongly suggest that the new folks on board pull out some older CR magazines. Judging from the other reviews I’ve read, I’m not alone in my concerns.
The old ranking system was so simple and easy to read. Please go back to the old CR that Ioved so much!
Consumer Reports, has, unfortunately, fallen victim to capitalism. While it used to have solid barriers preventing its name or reviews being used by businesses, CR now has business partners and can receive kickbacks when their links to businesses are used – goodbye independence. I also recently saw a TV ad where CR was featured heavily in a major car brand advertisement – that used to be verboten. CR also has adopted a “consume more, here are some ‘must buys'” attitude. CR went from “let the buyer beware, and here are the grim details why” to “consumers should buy one of everything, products are great, but let us pick which one for you”.
CR has made a fundamental change in its nature which has despoiled its good reputation. This may have been necessary for financial survival, but the CR I remember would have shuttered its doors before stooping to this level.
CR compromised it’s integrity and is useless now. They sold their souls. A waste of time. Sad because it was a trusted source of much-needed information for so long.