Why You Shouldn’t Trust YouTube Reviews. (Cycling Products.)

Time Stamps

0:00 Intro.
3:13 Reason 1.
8:30 Reason 2.
13:19 Reason 3.
14:53 Reason 4.
17:10 How to find a good review.
18:29 End of the road and fishermen.
22:58 Reason 5.
26:20 Conclusion and End.

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Reg.

Good morning everyone Reginald Scott here how are you all doing did you have a good Christmas and New Year’s sorry I haven’t been around for a little while uh basically my wife and I took the opportunity to go on holiday and so I haven’t been about to make many

Videos but I’m back now and uh oh before I forget don’t forget to like comment subscribe hit the notification Bell share with a friend all that good stuff I would really appreciate it thank you very much okay so today I’m going to take you somewhere that uh reminds me a little

Bit of where I used to ride back in the UK now obviously there’s a lot less tropical fruit and palm trees in the UK but what I mean is the kind of Roads these are sort of like where I used to live in the UK was a country side

Farmland SL Village area and so there was lots of narrow lanes and it was very hilly cuz it Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire is quite hilly it’s not mountainous but it’s hilly and where we’re going today as you can see is a little bit sort of back end of nowhere and uh very pretty in

Places little town little Villages and uh narrow streets as you can see didn’t slow down much at first did she I was avoiding the pothole there you go obstruction was on her side so right there are are that is the standard of driving thank you very

Much all right I’ve got to drop a gear here I’ve already dropped a gear here know what percentage this is but it’s pretty steep excuse me I might not talk much for this God I need to get onto the subject of today’s video don’t I okay give me a second so today’s subject

Is why you shouldn’t trust YouTube product reviews okay many reasons why you shouldn’t trust YouTube product reviews and I’m going to tell you all the reasons see very reminiscent of English country lanes I think you know stick a few Private Hedge RS in and a few sheep

And you could be in the back end of notum so let’s get on with the reasons number one the reason why you shouldn’t trust YouTube product reviews is when obviously but I’m going to point it out anyway even though it is obvious the product in question is

Sponsored or the channel is sponsored so if you’ve got gcn and their video is an ad and it says sponsored or they say it’s sponsored and gcn are sponsored by for example or and they’re reviewing the latest Ora whatever super bite chances are you’re not going to get a very good

Review um in the sense that it’s going to be a great review they’re going to tell you you all the great things about the bike but they won’t tell you a single bad thing about it so basically if you really want to know if that product is worth

Buying you certainly shouldn’t rely on a paid for sponsored advert from the likes of gcn now a lot of YouTubers so-called independent YouTube can you see that independent YouTubers from time to time receive sponsorships okay so again you really have to question is this going to be a legit review

Because sponsorship equals money and unfortunately as I’ve discovered in my nearly 40 years on the planet not quite there yet but getting close everything’s about money almost everything’s about money I think pretty much everything is about money at some extent because without money you can’t live and

A lot of these guys on YouTube including myself you know have to make a living we have mouths to feed including our own so when someone comes with a big fat paycheck it’s very hard to turn that down and if that means just bending the TRU slightly or avoiding it entirely

Well that kind of comes with the territory and here’s the thing you can’t really blame them and I imagine the way that most of these people rationalize their decisions is by saying well I’ve told people this is a sponsored review or I’ve told people I’m being sponsored well people know that

I’m sponsored by this brand so you know if they go and buy this product just on my say so maybe that’s their fault not mine but the problem is that marketing has really changed I remember when most of the marketing we used to get as people was directly from the companies

By adverts that they paid for on television or radio or Billboards and it was strikingly obvious that you were talking to someone with a corporate face you know that you were being sold by the company whereas now with using all these independent YouTubers independent um it it does give a false uh impression

Even when they they are clear about their sponsorships you know we are more inclined to trust people that we feel we know I mean I don’t know about you guys but when I watch certain YouTubers I I follow them for a long time and I feel

Like I get to know them and they almost become you know not a member of the family or something but like an acquaintance that we recognize and we look forward to seeing they kind of almost seem like friends so yeah we have a certain level of trust

With them and we don’t think they’re going to betray us because why should they right we don’t we don’t have this idea that we’re going to be scammed uh from these people but and like I said I don’t think it’s intentional I think these people are rationalizing it themselves and saying

Look all I’m doing is taking an honest paycheck to show you a great new product but how have they really tested it properly have they told you everything that’s the question you need to ask yourself you know if they do a really thorough review but they just hide one of the

Negative things they found or they don’t mention it that can totally change the image of the product right it can go from being an amazing product to being a terrible product just by one small piece of information so like I say be wary the next thing is when people are

Sent something for free now to me although they’re not taking money cash in hand right although they’re not getting money cash in hand to me that’s almost identical to being paid to do a review because some of the things that people get sent for free cost thousands of

Dollars and here’s the thing a lot of these YouTube channels survive based on the fact that they have constant flow of new products in which to review people like David Arthur they would have no business at all if they did not have a constant stream of free products that they are sent to

Review in inverted comers right if that supply of free stuff dried up their channel would dry up up in an instant people want to see new stuff I want to see new stuff I bet you want to see new stuff and so we click on the

Video so it’s a very powerful system and they’re not going to rock the boat so back to the YouTuber thing if a YouTuber gets sent a product let’s say it’s a wheel and they’re not 100% on board they will not be receiving the next product simple as and if they don’t receive the

Next product they don’t make a video if they don’t make a video they lose views if they lose views they don’t eat so it is a really vicious cycle so don’t trust people to get sent stuff for free they always say oh I’ve been sent

It for free but I’ve been told to give it an honest review I’ve done it myself I remember very early on in my YouTube career I met a guy out cycling in Nottingham and he found out I had a small YouTube channel he said do you want to review our

Products uh they bicycle products they were cleaning products so I said yeah sure so he sent me to sent me the products he didn’t tell me to give him a good review or anything he just said you know see what you think let us know and I did and uh

Well I was not that impressed and I tell you what I never received the call back they never came back to me with an answer they never you know nothing it was just deadly silence that was it and I never spoke to them again I certainly didn’t get a channel sponsorship that’s

For sure so yeah don’t be stupid you know big big businesses or even small businesses are not going to work with people that don’t 100% support them just not going to happen look at these lovely little Hills just like Notting him English country lanes look at them similar Road quality as

Well in some places taking it easy today cuz I’ve been off the bike for two weeks basically and I am fat ate way too much over Christmas and new years’s I’m really trying to scale it back it’s crazy right let’s just get down here first it’s a bit of a fast one

All right well where was I so yes if somebody gets sent something be very dubious they basically can’t tell you the truth they just can’t do it what a glorious day the same goes for anything that somebody got a heavy discount on you know that’s a monetary

Incentive you know for like me for example yeah I’m going to criticize myself like me when I review any of my products I did buy them myself you know I had to pay money for them nobody told me to review them and uh nobody sponsored me to review them not being

Paid I didn’t get anything for free I’m a shop I have to buy my products to get them when I buy a product to review I don’t I don’t buy it to review I buy it to sell and then I sometimes occasionally review it I have

Had like a 30 40% discount on that now it’s a little bit different from an independent YouTuber who doesn’t have a business as such um being given a 30 or 40% discount on a product just to review it that is you know to me that’s as bad as being

Paid but still I do have a bias and I guess my bias is I didn’t pay full price so a product that seems good to me maybe for example I don’t know a set of wheels might seem great to me because I only paid ,000 for them and you pay I don’t

Know 1,500 something like that you know 1,400 so I’m saving all that money in theory which in theory makes me biased towards the product okay so again be aware of that be suspicious of that another kind of product review you should really be wary of is you know

Hate to bring them up again but the likes of um well I’ll say friends right I won’t mention the two friends but there are two famous cycling YouTuber friends both who claim to work in the same field of uh I don’t know mechanical science should we say and when one

Friend reviews the other friend’s product I would call that a little bit suspicious okay now not saying there was anything underhand there um the one of the friends claims that he was not paid to review his good mates product but still I would be a little bit wary of

That if I was you simply because I didn’t see any negatives in that review really and he did basically avoid speaking about something quite important uh about the product which was totally skipped over so again you know little bit suspicious so be wary if you know two YouTubers are friends and

One is reviewing the other person’s business or product yeah little bit suspicious get up this hill Oh it’s a hard one come on I need a drink at the top of here for sure I am so unit so with all that said and if I’ve missed anything anything that you should look

Out for with regards to reviews and how to protect yourself do let me know I’m a drink so what should you look out for like what should be a review that you trust okay so avoid all those pitfalls I’ve just mentioned and try to go for small YouTubers obviously because the more

Successful you get the more you are likely to fall victim to the corrupt system just like politicians many of them I’m sure start out with good intentions many people start with good intentions and then they get corrupted by the system here we go End Of The Line This is where

The road kind of finishes basically we have to turn around and go back but I’ll just show you the end of the road first hey y we got a lot of fisherman here today my pgy py after you sir thank you there we are are you going out or coming in uh coming

In coming in successful fishing trip H yeah just get SP ohang is it udang galaa oh very good yeah they went out fishing for big prawns this morning they’re kind of like crayfish they call them udang Gala and they’re very delicious um maybe we’ll get to see what they’ve

Caught but this is a spot that I like to come to it’s really pretty and quaint here and often you you can see lots of uh interesting creatures and animals like if you look down there there’s some tracks in the sand so something has been prowling around this morning looking for things

To eat could be uh lizards there’s some Crocs in there for sure but you probably won’t see them cuz they already gone out hunting so where was it yeah so try and pick small YouTubers as independent as possible you know no sponsorships no paid advertising uh for them uh no discount codes

No uh what do you call it you know uh no free products and then really importantly try and pick someone who’s actually had the product for a good long time and hey if you know any YouTubers like this do stick them in the comments below so we can go and

Watch their videos um but yeah they’ve had to have the product for a while like I mean I’m talking months it’s no good someone getting a product you know in the box and saying this is a great product where’s the testing you know how long have you had it for that’s the key

Right this is the Steep Hill on my word that must be crazy D ask me the gradient I don’t know but it is steep I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s more than 20% it’s without a doubt the steepest hill I know very short but very steep jeez I got a bit though even with me Christmas fat on oh Santa Maria make

Sure the YouTuber has done plenty of mileage on the product first there’s absolutely no point in a YouTube review that is nothing more than a guy showing off a product he’s only had for a week you know yes it can give you first impressions but they’re really not that much use at all

So one person who sticks out in mind who I do like and who I do watch is uh trell guy who reviews a lot of Chinese products that are like AliExpress stuff and I buy AliExpress stuff so I do like that you know I do like um watching his

Reviews but what he tends to do and I’ll I’ll point out one in particular which was the um the L L2 is it called I think the electronic group set that he did recently um he got the thing he put it on his bike he reviewed it he said it was

Great you know and then literally a couple of days later I think less than a week later something on it broke and like seriously broke like something snapped or fell off something like that right now if you follow his channel you watched his review and you went wow that

Looks great and he likes it and I trust him and then you went out and you’d already bought it You’ paid your money and it was on the way so you couldn’t return it you know too late and AliExpress is quite difficult to return stuff on because you know the uh the

Onus is on the the buy buyer not the seller so you have to prove as a buyer that the seller did something wrong yeah and so you went out you bought it you spent hundreds of pounds on that thing electronic group set and guess what very next day major flaw

Discovered so be aware of that you know go with people who’ve actually put the product through its Pacers and that can be annoying because that means all the people that are going to review it first and give First Impressions and get all the hits are going to be people that you want to

Trust the Least make sure the person’s actually actually spent some good long time with the products at least a couple of months you know that’s why when I did my product reviews like my my chanelli review I had that bike for the best part 6 months before I reviewed it my hyper Wheels I

Had those for a few months I think before I reviewed them cuz I wanted to check them you know wanted to actually make sure that they were at least robust enough to last a few months which believe it or not a lot of products aren’t believe it or not a lot of

Products are that bad but they won’t even last a few months I think that’s about it folks so thank you for watching hopefully that was useful to you yeah be very careful who you trust especially with your money I know I can talk but uh I have

Been cheated many a time in my life I know it and uh it’s never fun and I don’t wish that upon anybody else so do be careful When selecting your next products do try and get lots of little reviews from independent as independent people as you can find

And as people have tested it for as long as you can find and do you’ll be aware of any kind of sponsorships right folks I shall see you all in the next video do ride safe bye-bye e