But how is it viable 'ad-free'? Are you willing to make a micro-payment for this? Do you need to also have a review of whether the product works or now, or is that done somewhere else?

good q... on instinct, i'd say don't put ads, but it has to wipe its own face somehow, so i guess micropayments/donations would be the way to go.

there should be a 'good housekeeping/consumer reports' type rating for products and services that took all the factors into account. as for the product working, well yes!

could you put in the name of the toaster manufacturer and find out instantly that it only toasted one side? pretty long shot... eventually maybe.

Would you not have bought the pre-amp/compressor if you found that they did not have some of the click-marks that you consider important?

if i'd seen there was a lot of conflicted reviews, i'd deduce that the compressor has a lot of 'character' and was only for fans of that particular sound, if the reviews were more uniform, that the product was so good it fit with many peoples' tastes.

I recently choose a hosting service. Yesterday I ran across another company that was twice as expensive, maybe a little more, for essentially the same service but they have tweaked their service to be significantly carbon-neutral. Would I have paid more for that?

dunno, would you? we all try to slant our purchases towards greener when we can, and sometimes we can better afford the extra premium, other times not.

meanwhile we can try to affect society to organise itself better so brown unrefined rice costs less than factory polished, iow that prices reflect ecological realties more, and less the economy of scale, ie that the white rice factory is bigger, therefore can afford to pump out product that has a bigger footprint for a lower price. 'efficiency' is questionable when this is the case.

puchasing organic food is a good example, because like all 'right livelihood' transactions, it goes much further than just my bellyful, influencing how much clean air and water there is left, and farmers doing the extra work to respect the land, encouraging them to stay in business.

I'll tell you what. I'll make that database, and get it online in the next couple months. Then I'll let the companies speak for themselves and fill it in. Would that work for you? There will be other ads on the site, since it is a news magazine (of sorts.)

that's cool! i think that would be a good step in the right direction. for sure a magazine would be more fun that a raw database of stats to see how many people had bought wang dong toasters and hurled them cursing into the landfill...

What other criteria? How deep? Like, they get their parts from many sources, and things are assembled here and there and everywhere. You want to know about each factory? What if it is made in Israel? You want to know if the factory hires Palestinians? You want to know the political contributions of the out-sourced groups?

sure, why not? transparency in practice.

some folks i know are boycotting israeli avocados etc, and i have been asking them, 'how do you know if you're not immiserating some arab farmer trying to make an honest living?

we need more info, the more the merrier...

passes back baton...

"It's very hard to see what is kept invisible" Roseanne Barr