Ease of use & distribution supersedes ownership of content and compiled legibility. Same reason people used Medium and now Substack... and in another way patreon for paywalls etc.
Could probably talk hours about this... but not here to shit on them at all. I was part of the acquisition of the CNET media group. RV contracted us from VCBS until the end of 2020. I was working with their teams as early as Oct/Nov but technically only "worked" for RV from Jan 1 to the end of June 2021. I know a lot of the writers/editors on our sites that came over in the acquisition were nervous because RV is very affiliate heavy; some got offers, some didn't, some bailed ship. In the short time I was there RV was mostly onboarding our various teams and figuring out who on their side could work best with each site/vertical and looking at current rev streams vs what they could contribute in. With the exception of one or two people, I thought the RV people I worked with were really nice and had good intentions with the sites they acquired. Socially I felt like they were welcoming (yeah, lots of rah ray stuff) and were more in a position to learn from me/us more so than looking to just "lay down the law". That was an initial concern within the VCBS teams but the process felt fine. Again I can only speak to the VCBS sites and our experience. There were internal problems with some of our sites before RV and they inherited some issues that will persist for a while... mentioning that as not all blame can be put on RV for some things, they'll work those out in time. My only real issue with RV is they had some people in rolls that I felt were too technical for them to perform well, which wasn't unknown but slow process to change. They hire from colleges in the SC/NC area a lot and train up to cycle them through the various sites. Nothing wrong with that strategy per-say but it's like the 'ol traditional agency model there; just hire fresh out of college kids and train them how you do things and then just have them continue to do that thing. Also a lot of people there have worked there for a long time... to some that may be a good sign, to others perhaps not; your call.
Many may not know how the affiliate world works but that's the world they're in... not surprising to me but at least with our sites RV was interested in seeing what fit into the current site instead of just selling every possible thing on every possible site; which some of the comments here assume is/will happen, but not really how it was internally. It's a game they're pretty good at playing (as are others) and a more competitive game more and more every day. Just how things are these days. Search for "Best XXXX" anything and you'll see all the sites playing that game... lot more "news" sites the last couple years getting into that game. Also NYT bringing wirecutter into their domain instead of stand-alone. Play ball!
Anyway, I don't have any ill will against RV and from what I experienced they were a pretty good company to work for given my roll and the situation I was in with the acquisition. Others certainly seem to have different experiences and that's fine. Can just speak to my time there only. And sure, I'm down to answer questions if you feel my limited insight could help.
idk what happened but at 1400PST on the money i loaded it... "add to cart" and "buy now" buttons were there but their function was inoperable. That page was broken for hours after that. And now it just says not available. ugh
