Consumer Rights Wiki

8/20/2026 at 9:40:02 PM

I encountered a BTRFS filesystem corruption today, nothing too heavy, it got recovered by a repair (even tough I don't know what caused it, memtest is clean and ssd is also clean), but while researching about it I was surprised to see Louis Rossman's business website show up !

https://rossmanngroup.com/problems/btrfs-filesystem-corrupti...

by LelouBil

8/20/2026 at 10:56:20 PM

Wow, the amount of AI-generated SEO content on this website is wild. I clicked on one of the related articles and it's also hijacking my scroll so I can't scroll down to the pages of extra content underneath the article.

I don't care who's doing it, that's not cool.

by Aurornis

8/20/2026 at 11:03:57 PM

he explained why he does that. In short, he was fighting to be displayed in search results by having legitimate content on the site for months, but the traffic was dying day by day and killing his business. He then asked Gemini to write him some bullshit SEO and went back to the 1st spot on google. Look for the video on his channel, it's not as bad as it looks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II2QF9JwtLc

I found this but keep in mind there were more videos about it. Let me leave the description of the video here:

Google delisted my business for almost a year. Professional SEO couldn't fix it, creating a new site didnt help. What finally worked was having AI rewrite my authentic content into corporate-friendly bunk. I hate that it worked. This video took me a month to make because I felt ashamed of my decision.

by efilife

8/20/2026 at 11:13:21 PM

"The website search company sells a tool to make websites", just another entry in the looooong list of Google's conflicts of interest

by hmry

8/21/2026 at 3:46:30 AM

Or maybe his legit content just wasn't that good.

by kelnos

8/21/2026 at 4:35:45 AM

Watch the video, he shows what was on the website. Additionally, it only recently fell off google while it was in perfect standing for many many years.

by efilife

8/21/2026 at 12:38:57 AM

He used that exact same excuse on another website that he AI generated for another project that was discussed here.

If anyone else was polluting Google search results with AI generated blog spam to promote their business the Hacker News audience would hate it, not accepting any excuses. I’ll probably get downvoted for saying this, but there’s a huge double standard that happens with figures that develop parasocial relationships with fans through their YouTube videos or podcasts. Can we just call a spade a spade and say that generating SEO blog spam with AI to get rankings for search terms like “btrfs corruption” just sucks, even if the person doing it made a YouTube video about it? I’m not buying the whole “Google made me do it” victim story when the SEO blogspam pollution isn’t stopping at getting his repair business listed. The website is spamming software search topics like btrfs and synology issues with a million AI generated pages trying to boost his hardware repair business. Why is it so hard to admit that he’s just playing the same scummy AI SEO blogspam game that everyone else is, but trying to pretend he’s the good guy while doing it?

by Aurornis

8/21/2026 at 12:53:46 AM

You aren't wrong, but ultimately to survive as a business like this that relies on search rankings, you have to play the game. Google rewards spamming the web with bullshit, and the businesses which do it capture all the sales.

by Gigachad

8/21/2026 at 1:17:58 AM

Also known as the "don't hate the player, hate the game" defense.

> but ultimately to survive as a business like this

He runs a popular YouTube channel which is a giant source of leads, and should be a good way to rank well in Google like all of the other famous YouTube figures who pull this off without creating 100s of AI generated blogspam pages.

I know I'm not going to win any arguments against dedicated fans who hang on to his every word as the ground truth, but to me it looks like he's just taking any advantage he can get to grow his business, even if it's AI generated blogspam, scroll hijacking, keyword stuffing, and other tricks that Hacker News readers usually hate. Playing the victim card to pretend like he had to do it doesn't sit well with me, especially since he's done this twice now across two different websites. If you want to do AI SEO blogspam to grow your business, just admit that it's what you're doing without trying to play the victim card at the same time.

by Aurornis

8/21/2026 at 4:41:00 AM

He said that it sucks and we all know it does. I think there's a big difference between vibecoding a product in a week and blogspamming to promote it and running a legitimate business for the past 15 years, and suddenly getting delisted by google. After fighting to get his site back on Google for a YEAR, I can understand his frustration - and would probably do the same. According to him he tried every single legitimate option before finally succumbing.

I have no dog in this fight, I disagree with some stuff that he says, just so you know.

And what's his other project that you keep mentioning? I haven't heard of it yet.

Addendum: the argument of trying to grow hia business may not be valid, as he mentioned that he voluntarily (iirc) shrunk his business lately

by efilife

8/21/2026 at 5:59:10 AM

> And what's his other project that you keep mentioning? I haven't heard of it yet.

https://www.fulu.org/

They went straight for an AI generated website with a bunch of AI copy that didn't really make sense when they first launched it. I only know this because it got posted here without context and a lot of us were trying to figure out what was going on with that website. IIRC he had the same excuse about not wanting to be delisted by Google, but it was literally a brand new website.

I think you're reaching to defend the guy, but it's clear that he just likes to lean into the AI slop and then record 30 minute videos where he explains that he's actually the victim in the whole situation.

by Aurornis

8/21/2026 at 7:13:54 AM

Aren't you misremembering? I checked the first webarchive snapshots of this site and the site is almost the same as today https://web.archive.org/web/20251001004605/https://fulu.org/

Does the site feel AI-generated to you?

Also I may be dumb but I can't find the thread you are talking about, anytime the site got posted it got almost no traction: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Edit, I think I found it:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45739271 I'll read it soon. Another edit: this isn't it.

>I think you're reaching to defend the guy

I think you don't understand my intentions even though I explicitly stated I don't care about the verdict. I don't care about defending him for the sake of defending him. I defend actions I deem reasonable regardless of who is doing them. You haven't addressed the points from my previous comment, and only picked one so I can't comment much more.

>IIRC he had the same excuse about not wanting to be delisted by Google

Do you know where I can find him saying this? I'm not requiring you to send me the source, just point me in the right direction. I am always happy to change my opinion when new facts emerge

by efilife

8/20/2026 at 10:23:11 PM

Louis is quite vocal about transparency for consumers and openly sharing knowledge for people to be able to do repairs themselves or even set up a competing business.

by chrysoprace

8/20/2026 at 9:49:09 PM

It's funny how so many of the articles are hyper-specific grievances, e.g.:

https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Bose_QuietComfort_Sleepbuds_do...

https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Tyre_warranty_sold_via_mobile_...

And there's also https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Mr._Clinton_the_cat

by matherial

8/20/2026 at 10:27:03 PM

Each one is a bit funny in isolation, and it's also true that the most common feedback is always unhappy feedback, but every company looking for another vein to tap for sustenance hopes observers will write off their particular incision as hyper-specific. Besides providing a place to check before doing business with a company, the Consumer Rights Wiki is about making the cumulative effect of a thousand hyper-specific cuts harder to ignore.

by sfRattan

8/20/2026 at 11:37:01 PM

On the Bose one:

Consider if your laptop was paired to it's specific charger and would refuse to charge with any other cable or charger. Lose or break your charger and suddenly your $2000+ laptop is irreparable.

That seems obviously stupid, right? And the sort of thing that ought to be illegal? Well, the headphones are the same, just with a different looking charging cable.

by ball_of_lint

8/21/2026 at 12:21:06 AM

Apple gets all the heat for consumer rights issue, and rightfully they do need to do better, but every time I look, they are one of the best companies for repair and consumer rights. The rest of the industry is straight up atrocious.

Apple will sell you a replacement left or right airpod, and a replacement case. If you bought all 3 to form a complete product it comes out hardly more expensive than buying a new one so the replacements are fairly priced too.

by Gigachad

8/21/2026 at 1:00:08 AM

Don't give it a pass, at all.

I have many friends with a laptop that has an issue, just out of warranty. Apple will "repair" it for a LOT, suspiciously like $200 less than a new laptop.

Personally happened to me 2 times.

by m463

8/21/2026 at 1:15:20 AM

Doesn't give them a pass, but if you look at the alternatives, most of them won't even have a repair location at all. When I wanted to get my Pixel phone fixed I couldn't even contact google because their support contact required giving a serial number and the phone being within the warranty period. Apple repairs might be over priced but Google wouldn't even give me a price

by Gigachad

8/21/2026 at 12:55:32 PM

Does Google control the 3P repair market for its devices? Such as by parts pairing?

Because sometimes a free market of unofficial options is better than an exclusive and exorbitant option.

by paulryanrogers

8/21/2026 at 11:49:53 AM

> but every time I look, they are one of the best companies for repair and consumer rights

Are you looking only on apple.com?

by TiredOfLife

8/21/2026 at 4:55:40 AM

[dead]

by WrexyBalls

8/21/2026 at 12:19:40 AM

> That seems obviously stupid, right?

Yes.

> And the sort of thing that ought to be illegal?

No, why? As long as you know ahead of time what you are getting, seems fine to me. People are also allowed to buy impractical shoes in stupid colours, and that shouldn't be illegal.

by eru

8/21/2026 at 12:22:58 AM

Because it's destroying the planet creating mountains of ewaste. And because as a consumer, I don't want to spend a week doing research on every product to make sure they aren't abusing my rights in some confusing way that only shows up years down the line.

In the same way I like not having to check restaurants are poisoning me, I like knowing my consumer rights are being respected in every other industry.

by Gigachad

8/21/2026 at 12:26:17 AM

Your preferences are not necessarily shared by other people.

What's next, banning pineapple on pizza?

> Because it's destroying the planet creating mountains of ewaste.

Don't buy stuff, then? Or in general, ask your legislators for a tax on ewaste?

> And because as a consumer, I don't want to spend a week doing research on every product to make sure they aren't abusing my rights in some confusing way that only shows up years down the line.

Read reviews, or rely on brands that have a reputation to burn, or ask your AI helper to read the fineprint.

by eru

8/21/2026 at 3:44:13 AM

What a weird way to frame the argument. Banning pineapple on pizza takes away choice. Legally requiring that headphone manufacturers offer the ability to buy a new charging case for them just saves people money and reduces harm to the environment.

Please don't argue in bad faith.

by kelnos

8/21/2026 at 3:55:09 AM

What you are suggesting also takes away a choice.

by eru

8/21/2026 at 4:28:50 AM

The customer can still choose to buy a whole new set of headphones if their case fails or gets lost, if that's really the experience they want. Offering a replacement doesn't change that.

by al_borland

8/21/2026 at 5:05:12 AM

Consenting adults can use contracts and agreements to restrict their later choices. Eg a farmer and a super market can contract today to trade potatoes next year.

Strictly speaking, entering that contract takes away a choice in the future.

Or a car company might offer today to buy back your car in the future for a given price. If you ban that contract, they can still choose to buy back that car in the future, but the customer cannot rely on it today.

by eru

8/21/2026 at 5:16:43 AM

No intelligent or sane person would enter into a contract that is nothing but downside for them. In what situation would someone want to be obligated to buy a whole new set of headphones because they can't charge their current set anymore due to a missing/broken case?

by al_borland

8/21/2026 at 8:59:02 AM

Well, if people don't enter into these contracts anyway, why do we need to protect them?

by eru

8/21/2026 at 1:07:14 PM

Gigachad already covered this.

> Because it's destroying the planet creating mountains of ewaste. And because as a consumer, I don't want to spend a week doing research on every product to make sure they aren't abusing my rights in some confusing way that only shows up years down the line.

We shouldn’t make an entire population hunt through fine print, or research every situation that might come up with a product over the lifetime of ownership, to protect themselves from a practice that seeks to enrich companies while offering no defensible improvement to the product.

Can you name even one way locking down a charging case makes the product better?

by al_borland

8/21/2026 at 4:17:45 AM

Takes away the choice to not have the choice to buy replacement parts?

by Gigachad

8/21/2026 at 5:05:38 AM

Yes, exactly.

Consenting adults can use contracts and agreements to restrict their later choices. Eg a farmer and a super market can contract today to trade potatoes next year.

Strictly speaking, entering that contract takes away a choice in the future.

by eru

8/21/2026 at 12:34:29 AM

Thankfully my preference for not destroying the environment and abusing buyers is shared by the majority in my country which is why stricter consumer laws are catching up to these tech companies.

by Gigachad

8/21/2026 at 12:27:29 AM

>creating mountains of ewaste.

Earth is much much bigger than you think it is. Even if you care about reducing waste, less then 3% of total waste is ewaste. Ewaste is not destroying the planet.

by charcircuit

8/21/2026 at 1:33:29 AM

Is there any legitimate reason why those Bose headphones should be able to pair with with any case? If there's a legitimate preference here, then I don't see an inherent problem with it, assuming the consumer is informed, but that doesn't seem to be the case from my understanding. If there is no legitimate reason for them to not be able to pair, then they're just generating needless e-waste. That probably should be illegal, or at least regulated as to discourage it from happening.

A normal consumer wouldn't assume this to be the default behaviour, and I doubt Bose wrote this (or whatever possible advantage you'd get from this behaviour) on the box or website blurb.

by Telaneo

8/21/2026 at 12:23:59 AM

So long as it wasn't something that changed due to a firmware update after purchase, sure.

One of the most common grievances on ConsumerRightsWiki is when the terms of the sale seem to change after you've already purchased the product.

by rockskon

8/21/2026 at 1:59:55 AM

But the problem is that this is equipment that is going up in price exponentially now. Equipment that is also mandatory to be able to hold a damn job in a lot of these cases. Realistically speaking, it should be illegal to be doing practices that make it harder or literally impossible to repair anything we buy. For example, with Ford, they're trying to make it so you can only use THEIR repair people to fix your car. Gives a whole new meaning to Found on Road Dead...

by JamesTDG

8/21/2026 at 8:53:15 AM

Shhh don't ask that. The authoritarians are here.

by akramachamarei

8/21/2026 at 1:53:59 AM

It shouldn't be illegal because it's stupid, it should be illegal because it's a needless artificial restriction that the product would be functionally identical without.

It would literally have cost them less development time to make the headphones without this restriction. And that would be better for the consumer. The only purpose this restriction serves is to make the headphones easier to break (possibly increasing the number of purchases? It's deliberately anti-consumer.

This is exactly one of those places that capitalism doesn't work well and regulation is needed. Businesses would rather have you purchasing a new item every year instead of building something that lasts, but it's dramatically better for society when products are actually good instead of crap.

by ball_of_lint

8/21/2026 at 2:25:22 AM

Why doesn't the competition undercut them, if it's such a no-brainer? It's not like Bose has a monopoly on headphones.

by eru

8/21/2026 at 4:05:10 AM

Because there's (at least a perception of) less money to be made making a product that doesn't break within a few years.

As an example of this, look up Instant Pot.

by ball_of_lint

8/21/2026 at 5:06:19 AM

Sorry, could you please elaborate. No one is forced to buy a Bose product, and there are plenty of competitors.

I can see why companies would try to sell you a product that breaks, sure. But competitors can point out that their product doesn't break (in case it actually doesn't), and try to win over customers.

by eru

8/21/2026 at 9:26:29 AM

Instant pot went through bankruptcy, at least in part because they made a good durable product. The durability resulted in them not geting many repeat customers. People liked it so they bought one and it just worked for years and years, quickly satisfying the market.

https://www.bonappetit.com/story/instant-pot-bankrupt?srslti...

Generically, yeah there's some markets where that works alright. For example, I don't think the car industry is unhealthy in this way. The phone market is unfortunately rife with this - the biggest players are all doing it, to their own benefit, and it's difficult enough to seriously enter the market that it's not very open to disruption.

by ball_of_lint

8/21/2026 at 5:09:19 AM

Yes, it should be illegal. The default expectation when you buy a device should be that something as simple as a power supply can be replaced.

I could agree with you if products that fail with the regulation have to put these shortcomings front and center on every place they are marketed on and not some fine print in some manual.

The idea of regulation is to allow consumers to just buy a thing and have certain expectations met.

If you buy a piece of lettuce you should be able to eat it without owning a fucking biology lab to check it first for example.

by atoav

8/20/2026 at 11:50:04 PM

Each one reads to me as:

User is lead to believe X, if they don't read the fineprint.

X is not the case. Instead you get Y.

That sounds perfectly fitting into a consumer rights wiki to me.

Also, Clinton the cat is the much beloved cat of the persom who started the wiki.

by AnyTimeTraveler

8/21/2026 at 12:57:37 AM

I'm not criticizing, I just found it amusing.

by matherial

8/21/2026 at 12:24:01 AM

It's hard to take seriously when many of these pages are not anti consumer but just products that one random person distant like something about. Like for one the fact that it has a mobile companion app is anticonsumer.

You can't when against these people and I highly suggest ignoring these "consumer rights" people as their opinions don't reflect what makes actual business sense to do.

by charcircuit

8/21/2026 at 1:35:02 AM

> You can't when against these people and I highly suggest ignoring these "consumer rights" people as their opinions don't reflect what makes actual business sense to do.

It makes a lot of business sense to scam people. There's a lot of money to be earned doing that. That doesn't make it a good thing.

by Telaneo

8/21/2026 at 1:08:10 AM

Do you have a specific example on the wiki you can cite for your grievance?

by rockskon

8/21/2026 at 3:39:25 AM

Just pick any article. https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Whoop was the one complaining that you needed a mobile app instead of a web app.

by charcircuit

8/21/2026 at 7:39:16 AM

I actually find that site super informative. Specifically the hard cancellation is something I would be infuriated by as well and that you would barely know without a site like this.

And the whole app part specifically criticises the fact that while there is an option to read put some information via the web, you don't get to read out everything there and there's no valid reason to do that. They already went the extra mile so you can read some stuff via the web, so having some stuff that you can only read via the app feels malicious to me.

I think generally reading this felt like a review of stuff that wouldn't be criticized in a YouTube Review for example, but that I personally do care about.

by mrln

8/20/2026 at 9:08:24 PM

Dear Santa, please make consumer rights true; The other entities didn't really listen.

by eccentricwind

8/20/2026 at 10:27:56 PM

For those that don't know, this is an initiative started by Louis Rossmann and is largely run by a few volunteers.

by chrysoprace

8/21/2026 at 7:43:25 AM

Any RSS feed for articles? I can only find one for every change and it is quite spammy.

by zero0529

8/20/2026 at 9:24:09 PM

It is a commendable initiative, but its credibility must be maintained by applying the policies scrupulously.

It's a pity that pages cannot be created in other languages, given that anti-consumer practices also occur outside the English-speaking world.

by a9i

8/21/2026 at 1:43:37 AM

The main issue is the fact that the wiki just does not have enough resources to support having more than just the English language. It would be nice to support having more languages and thus covering more anti-consumer incidents in non-English parts of the world.

Realistically speaking, it would be unfair to run a wiki with additional languages where the volunteer staff are unable to actually moderate the content because they can't understand the language.

by JamesTDG

8/21/2026 at 12:23:15 AM

You can create something like verbraucher-rechte.de just fine.

by eru

8/21/2026 at 3:40:09 AM

[flagged]

by jocelyner