Genuine question here (I’m just a consumer, not ITB): if you had to design a wine critic business model such that reviews were 100% independent, with zero real or perceived conflicts of interest (esp. the pay-to-play issues discussed above), what would that look like? Of the course the catch is that it also needs to be profitable enough to compensate for the time, effort, and business expenses of the critics (being a hobbyist wine critic and doing it for free isn’t realistic).
Perhaps I should create a separate post on this but I’d be keen to hear everyone’s thoughts. I personally think a lot of you raise some great points on both sides of the argument - but it’d be much more interesting to put our swords and pitchforks up and discuss how the status quo could be improved (at least hypothetically 
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