Engadget to have comments no more. 37Signals just did the same.

If you are fairly well established in a niche with little competition there is no need to deal with or prune comments, but if you are in a fairly competitive field like tech reviews, removing the user feedback means that readers just go elsewhere.

I think the idea of only selectively turning comments on may make people more inclined to give feedback when you really want it, but with all the various niche electronics review blogs I am fairly certain most of the posts are not done by people who review all the goods, and throwing away user feedback throws away much of the value.

If you view reader feedback as a cost then maybe you need to look at your longterm goals and think of how quickly more open competitors will jump into the market.

[found on TW]