Most of my postings just get a few hits at first and then one every great while.
Anyway. I got a FREE ITEM from a manufacturer with the implication that I should review it.
Now I have a moral conundrum: should I sell out and give the manufacture a good review in return for the FREE ITEM? Maybe there will be more FREE ITEMS!
Or I could keep my integrity, and give it a bad review if it deserves it. I have evaluated the FREE ITEM yet, so I don't know how it will turn out.
Similarly, if I give it a good review, because the product really was good, readers could infer I am just a shill, and the review is meaningless promotion.
I am not in the depths of poverty, and it is not like the FREE ITEM is a car. I can afford to buy FREE ITEMS. What price is my integrity anyway?What if the price of my integrity is less than the price of a new car? Hmm, maybe I should branch out into reviewing cars.
The government says that if I am getting paid, that the blog is an advertisement, and I need to disclose that. On the other hand, then I look sold out, and lose credibility. However, perhaps Depth-of-Processing is already sold out, so nothing lost. Scott Adams says Dilbert was born sold out.
Of course, if the FREE ITEM is of negligible value, then I am not really getting paid, am I? What is negligible anyway? Another moral hazard.
If the FREE ITEM is no good, I could forget to post about it. That is another form of the moral hazard isn't it. This moral hazard is a more insidious.
The only thing to do is to ignore the price of the FREE ITEM, and evaluate it as any other item. Right?
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ReplyDeleteI think you werent supposed to post that you had received a free item and just review the item as if you had purchased it. It seems silly that the manufacturer would even check back anyway to see what you said, they are so busy. They probably just sent you something cuz you showed up on a google search.
ReplyDeleteActually, whether I disclose getting free-stuff in a challenge to my integrity, and whether I will sell out for a $30 T-shirt.
ReplyDeleteI added this T-shirt to my T-shirt review post. I said that it was complementary too.
It would have had a good review had the shirt been a medium instead of a large. It is hard to complain about a free shirt, but I did ask for a medium. Baggy shirts can't wick away water since the shirt needs to touch the skin for capillary action to work.