Originally Posted by
JAXPax
You are exactly right. The value I place on Ben's website is that I can look up an airline/airport/hotel/lounge and I know I'm going to get an overview start to end of the product with consistent photos. I'm going to see the food options. I'm going to see the amenity kit. I'm going to see the bathroom situation in a hotel. Sometimes helpful hints like how to best get to an airport hotel from the terminal (like walk, don't take their shuttle). It has helped me in some trip planning or swayed me in which hotel property I've used (and I appreciate he does review some places as mundane as the HGI at FRA, which is pretty much my hotel baseline... well, HGI Joplin, MO is more so). He's also not generally sensationalist about various things in the product... I think he does identify legitimate shortcomings or gives a basis of information to either agree or disagree with him.
A metric of success for any writer/blogger/influencer is that people keep coming back for more, which, as you indicate, he is good at.
I'd suggest the fact that a thread has been going on here for 11 years, where people continue to read his posts only to make the same tired criticisms every six months, suggest he is very good at what he does.
Indeed, one thing that he has in common with the truly elite scions of wealthy family is his ability to live rent -free....in some FT members' heads for years.