u/Zestyclose-Level1871 wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Does this mean we can't trust the data and stats posted on these sites anymore due to a potential conflict of interest?
u/michaelnovati replied ·
I don't think so yet. There are three players right now:
1. Career Karma - pivoted to be AI customer engagement company in february, so I don't think that their judgment will change much overtime and their content is there more for SEO and to try to collect some income to the company
2. Course Report: their ethics statement hasn't changed so I don't expect the reliability to change. I think it's just similar to CIRR to understand inherent biases. If bootcamps who pay their sponsorships fail, Course Report fails. If no one wants to go to bootcamps, Course Report has no purpose. So their existence relies on bootcamps doing well. They don't make money from prospective students paying membership fees but they DO make money from referring a prospective student to a partner bootcamp and getting a large referral fee. To me, them selling is a sign that none of these revenue streams made sense anymore and instead they brand "Course Report" can be used on top of a full stack machinery (Career.io) but have them run operations for almost no additional cost.
3. Switch Up. Was sold long ago a company called Optimal which is kind of like [Career.io](http://Career.io) and while it didn't change much, it also basically died off and has broken images and super dated "news" that's almost a year old... wouldn't be surprised if Course Report follows that path.