All of the google results are articles that were obviously written by a machine and recommend the same ten most popular products. There are communities for every conceivable type of product on reddit, but they are all full of people saying things like "this $ 500 toaster is a pretty good starter, but you'll soon want to upgrade to this $ 1200 one, it has a much fuller set of features." I've had to resort to watching youtube videos, but even those are unreliable because they benefit from calling each product the best or worst ever.
I feel like it wasn't like this just five or ten years ago. Did things actually change, or am I just misremembering?
You have to do your own research with buying anything with regards to electronics and computers on niche enthusiast websites like notebookcheck and gsmarena before buying anything these days.
For example, did you know that both the Western Digital (WD) Blue and SanDisk Ultra 3D 2.5 inch SATA solid state drives are literally identical with regards to the hardware inside, but the WD blue blue model is significantly more expensive? And that Western Digital also owns SanDisk? Literally paying more for a blue sticker on an SSD for no reason, capitalism folks.
https://www.thessdreview.com/featured/wd-blue-3d-ssd-sandisk-ultra-3d-ssd-review-1tb-twins-at-their-finest/