A week ago my cable modem died.  No internet in my home.  And boy, oh, boy do you not realize how much you use the internet until you’re not able!  No streaming TV (because I still don’t have cable).  No wi-fi on my tablet to read the morning news.  No streaming music.  It wasn’t that many years ago that I didn’t have a home wi-fi network, but I sure am dependent now!  But that’s not what this post is about.

This post is about my journey to a new cable modem.  After work on the evening that my modem died, I spent some quality time at the local big box electronics store.  I picked out three modems in my price range that met my specifications.  The prices were all within about $20 of each other.  But then I sat down on the floor and consulted my smartphone (my only remaining source of internet).  Several blue shirted employees walked by without ever saying the words “May I help you.”  But that’s a different tale.  I was in my own world anyway.  I looked at reviews for the three modems I had picked out.  And it very quickly became clear that one of the modems was better than the other two.  Luckily for me, it was the least expensive one.

The internet makes it very easy for us to learn from the mistakes of other people.  If a product is no good, someone has probably written about it.  If a product is great, someone has likely written that too.  It’s all out there for us to see.  And it’s definitely best if you can look at a lot of reviews, to see if there are recurring themes.  There will be anomalies that stand out as being different from the norm.  But the more good reviews, the better the chance you’re getting a good product.

After a couple of days of watching old-fashioned DVDs for entertainment, we finally had enough ambition to hook up the new modem.  And it worked like a charm.  No problems.  No need to even interact with the cable company supplying our internet.  And this is exactly what I expected after reading the reviews online.

There’s a world of information at our fingertips.  It’s definitely worth doing a little investigating before making a purchase.  It may save you a lot of grief….and the need to write a negative review.