The Problem with Linus Tech Tips: Accuracy, Ethics, & Responsibility
The Problem with Linus Tech Tips: Accuracy, Ethics, & Responsibility
The issue with the water block is massive to me. Testing a prototype product on a GPU that it wasn't made for, giving it a negative review, doubling down on that negative review when called out, promising to return the prototype to Billet Labs, then SELLING the prototype to the public at their LTX expo. As Steve points out, if a competitor gets their hands on that prototype, it could put Billet Labs out of business. This is wild, and LMG should absolutely be called out like this.
There should be actual, legitimate, law enforcement involvement.. Cause its literally theft at best, corporate espionage at worst.
A $100million dollar company should be able to reclaim that property even if it means paying through the nose to get it back to the rightful owner. Losing a mass production GPU is one thing, that can be fixed with a check. A one of a kind prototype though? And who would make the decision to give something like that away, especially without consent? Things like that should come with a letter of endorsement of the charity sale, or at least have a (year plus) pause before just giving it away.
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Until I saw that I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Even knowingly fudging numbers, while bad, is a temptation it’s easy to see someone trying to keep up with the content rat race falling into.
The corporate espionage on the other hand is fucking gross. Unless Billet Labs provides a statement that fully absolves LTT of any wrongdoing and states they OK’d the auction, I’m prepared to not engage with LMG at all anymore. Which sucks because I kinda like their water bottle.
I know we’ve only heard one side of the story so far, so I’ll reserve judgement. If it turns out as bad as it sounds though, they can get Anker’d
They should seriously get legal repercussions for this particular fuckup
Not too mention totally ignoring the instructions billet labs provided
I really hated him talking about wanting to review it as a product (which he thought nobody would buy). It's a prototype. It's specifically not a product yet. That's the whole point of a prototype. It's a concept and idea working towards a launch. For as often as they have videos with preproduction, engineering sample products, he absolutely knows the difference.
They didn't sell it, the auctioned it 🤡
I've had beef with LTT since his series of videos where he tried to use Linux as a daily driver while making absolutely zero effort to understand any of the differences between it and Windows, then proceeded to whine about how it's not Windows. The part where he broke his system after it explicitly warned him he was about to break it and asked for rather thorough confirmation that he wanted to do so was where I stopped watching him for good.
There's being ignorant and then there's being stupid. I fault nobody for being ignorant of how something works when they first encounter it. I do, however, fault them when they demand changes be made without actually understanding the implications of those changes.
The Linux thing I don't find egregious. Replace Linus with a sizeable majority of the population and they would have done the same thing. I probably would have as well.
If you want to move people from Windows to Linux, Discord to Matrix, Whatsapp to Signal or even Reddit to Lemmy, it needs to be as painless as possible.
Everything that GN points out though is pretty damning.
Yes! The Linux coverage from LTT is positive and encourageing UNLESS Linus is in the video then he looks for any excuse to raise his voice and yell "this is stupid" or "its going to break on me in 5 minutes". Emily's very good coverage of PopOS back in 2019 ish got me into Linux and I have not looked back. Its disappointing to see how with many things (not just Linux) how Linus will change the direction of a video to be more entertainmenting/clickbaity at the cost of good information and quality.
I think what becomes clear when watching a lot of videos is that Linus is more of a tech fanboy that is good at all the high level stuff and can sell it in an entertaining way. He is not however someone who is super into the weeds of a specific technology, tool or system beyond applying his „I’ve worked with technology before“ knowledge.
They have other folks on the show for that.
It that being said. I wouldn’t fault him for his experience with PopOS!. That was totally on the OS and not his fault.
That bit was important to include in the video in my opinion because of the circumstances.
He didn't break his computer while messing around with the kernel, changing system settings by recklessly copy&pasting random commands he found on the internet. It happened while trying to install a very popular software from the distro's official package manager, following what's otherwise standard installation procedure. A lot of people broke their systems the exact same way until that bug was fixed.
We all like to pretend Linux is "there", but it was a clear and important example of how it's not really. Because the user is dumb and the user has no idea what they're doing. At least that's the core assumption an OS should operate under if it is to be used by anyone and everyone. You can't claim even your grandma can run Arch when trying to install Steam can bork your system. And no, warnings are not a valid defense in this case. You will never teach the average user to not ignore those. Unfortunately it's the OS's job to protect the user from their own recklessness, and again, warnings are not always enough. Especially when you're getting warnings while doing something so mundane.
But that's how the typical user behaves. I love Linux and what you can do with it, but it's so tone deaf to think oridanry people are going to behave any diffeent than Linus did. People just don't have the time to take that effort you expect of yourself, only enthusiast have this kind of time. Other people are enthusiastic about other things. We need to all respect this.
Ugh, it's so frustrating. Linux will continue to be irrelevant to consumers as long as this attitude of "just put in the effort to understand" persists.
His series on linux got me interested in linux and a few weeks before the first ep came out I made the switch. I had been using linux as a brand new user for 4 weeks when watching his "review" of linux and I thought it was unfair. But linux made a good first impression on me and I am still daily driving it and now all my machines run linux.
Yeah, this irked me too. I get trying to be the average person (and Pop! was also bugged at the time), but I find it really hard to believe that the average person would approach linux and completely ignore serious warning messages.
I work in IT. Average people tend to fall into one of two categories when presented with big scary warning messages.
Category 1: They freak out and immediately ask for help, and tend to be very skeptical of anything you tell them to do until the message goes away.
Category 2: They ignore the message and YOLO it like Linus did, then call for help hours or days later when something inevitably breaks.
It's rare for either group of people to read an comprehend the message in it's entirety.
Good God that was infuriating. Watching the prompt pop up when he was installing Steam or whatever asking him to confirm if he really wanted to remove the GUI was awful. He just said yes and felt like Linux was the issue. Nope.
In the years I have spent IT adjacent, the primary difference I have noticed between Windows and Linux has nothing to do with drivers, OS, UI, or anything like that. It's that Windows has long conditioned users to hit OK on anything that pops up. Linux expects you to read it and make a choice, and it's usually not that difficult of a choice. Linus pulled up a web page, blindly followed instructions without reading, and borked his install. Predictable. It's the same behavior that gives grandma a computer virus.
I started the video shocked that GN would do a video like this at all. I was 100% ready to blame GN for being petty. As I watched and listened, though, he made really good points, and I can't help but agree. Especially on the points where Linus doubles down on really bad takes instead of doing the right thing, insisting it doesn't matter (there are loads more examples than just Billet).
The one thing he didn't say that I wish he had, though, is to remind people that he's focused on industry journalism, not just hardware itself. This isn't a hit piece, it's an information piece, where he holds industry players accountable. Not unlike his journalism on Newegg and Asus. No, it's not positive, but it's honest, and it informs and benefits consumers.
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I got the sense that he didn't really want to have to do a video like this. He kind of said as much a couple of times. And in one section he mentioned he has kind of tip-toed around directly calling out LTT on specific screwups for some time. Like posting his results that contradicted theirs with the hope that people would notice but without directly going "looks at LTT's bogus numbers wtf"
I kind of felt like he got to a point where he couldn't in good conscience ignore it any longer because the pile of fuckups had gotten too big and too egregious with this billet labs fiasco.
I'm glad he did the vid because, yeah, he has done a good job of holding others accountable as you said, and this is exactly the same ethos. It's tough because I imagine you don't want to be seen as just doing hit pieces against the competition. There's an inherent conflict of interest at play. But given sufficiently good evidence and enough of it, I think that puts those concerns almost entirely to rest.
The kind of person to be doing reviews is someone who values the truth -- accurate results and sound conclusions -- over money, ego, fame and popularity, etc. Someone with a great deal of curiosity, skepticism, mental flexibility, and humility. Sounds like that is the near polar opposite of Linus.
I find it hard to believe, sometimes, that fully grown adults exist who cannot admit their mistakes which just reminds me of how damn lucky I am to work where I do, with a culture that encourages fessing up and fixing rather than covering up and blaming. Where the overwhelming majority of people I have ever worked with is about doing the right thing with an eye primarily on the goal rather than their own ego and ambition.
Yeah, he didnt do a video to roast LTT and he also didnt insult him.
He just stated what he sees as going wrong at LTT and how it could be fixed.
I stopped watching LTT a long time ago because of similar reasons, it was just so frustrating to see them start a project, barely finish it, release the video and the not finish it.
Other times they made a big mistake in the middle and continued with the video "because we dont have time to fix it".
I prefer Youtubers that may have months between videos, but when a new one is out, I nkow its going to be a good one.
And if they do a project, when it has an issue, they either continue the video until it is fixed, or they read it in the comments and someday we will get a follow up.
Linus's response.
I honestly fully stand by GN in this and while I think LTT should have had the opportunity to respond to the allegations before the video went live, since this is the proper Journalistic thing to do, it should be considered that ltt has a huge audience and influence in the tech sphere so I can only assume GN didn't want them to get ahead of the curve? It's sad if it has come to this.
I also don't know how exactly ltt could respond to the observations GN made since it's a piece about what happened in videos they posted. They can't really deny what happened. All they could do is lower their head and promise to do better.
Ugh, Hes trying so hard to double down on his comments, while giving plausible deniability to his doubling down, especially with the Billet block.
And its so fucking stupid to complain that the billet waterblock is expensive and stupid, considering ALL the stupid, expensive, wasteful bullshit hes done on his channel.. Its double stupid that hes still using his basis on using the wrong card that didnt fit it as his argument.
It's a bit conceited off him to assume he knows what's best for his viewers. A review is supposed to give unbiased, timely, and accurate information about a product and let the customer decide if it's worth their money. A reviewer can give opinions, of course, but only after the concrete numbers. Linus has no idea what $800 is worth to any given viewer; I bet there are many who would happily pay that much for a custom water block if it was the best on the market. To bad we don't know how good it is because ltt didn't adequately test it.
I've got to say, I've noticed a lot of the things Steve mentioned in his video, and I agree with the vast majority of what he said, but I still do watch LTT occasionally because it's still often entertaining, but man Linus' response rubbed me the wrong way. Aside from addressing the auctioning the water block thing, he didn't really address anything and most of it came off as woe is me. It sounded like he thinks the GN video is why people are upset rather than the countless mistakes and corrections they've had to do in the past just 6 months. It seems to me like he's missing the issue most people have.
Server capacity exceeded Thankfully I got to read it before their forum server took a dump for some reason
I don't feel Linus could have said anything to Steve to stop the video Really, Linus/LMG needed the wakeup call They have been making bigger and bigger stumbles and it's not just due to growth as Linus uses it as an excuse He also said nothing would change as a result of the Billet debacle, just a tightening of documentation but it a sign of bigger issues It was the result of multiple levels of failure He should have stopped the video when he knew they didn't have the right GPU there and even pointed out quite authoritatively to is employee his mistake in not identifying the GPU A symptom of rushing out videos on a very tight schedule possibly
The big reason Steve didn't go through Linus first, and he mentions it a few times in the video, is because LMG is no longer a small company or a one man YouTube show. They're s big company. I know Linus works hard to hit that YouTube grind, but he still sees himself as a small YouTuber.
I mean Steve would have done this same piece had it been gigabyte, Newegg, or whomever on that larger scale.
Follow up on Linus' response from GN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3byz3txpso
Reading this is like when the Irish kid warned us all to not get frostbit.
We know that we're not perfect. We wear our imperfection on our sleeves in the interest of ensuring that we stay accountable to you. But it's sad and unfortunate when this transparency gets warped into a bad thing.
Yeah, well, that's one of the main issues addressed in this video: You are not transparent about this, when you swap out videos without notice or bury corrections in a non-pinned comment.
Listing the wrong amount of cache on a table for a CPU review is sloppy, but given that our conclusions are drawn based on our testing, not the spec sheet, it doesn't materially change the recommendation.
If the listing is wrong, who guarantees the lab tests on which the conclusion is based on are not wrong?
The thoroughness that we managed on our last handful of GPU videos is getting really incredible given the limited time we have for these embargoes.
Take the time it needs to produce correct reviews then. Who wants fast but false results?
Not fully LTT related, but man is it hard to write an apology, everytime I read one online I've never seen people think that the person was truly apologetic.
Fully LTT related, Personally seeing the character, I'd say he is indeed apologetic, I can fully see how this error could be made from what was written in his response and hell a lot of people could have done so I'd say personally. I personally think he would be apologetic and wants to do better, this guy wants to go far to do well, he's a guy that wants to do a lot
Edit: Yeah I can understand, if you'd like to share your point of of view with me feel free to do so, I'm a chill person, just wanted to share my point of view and it'll be a pleasure to read others
Writing this 12 Horus later. Decides to rewatch the GN video, some of those errors are really big and have to absolutely be fixed or be repaired as much as possible, and some definitely come from the size of the company which is becoming really big creating communication errors, which the bigger a company gets, the bigger the projects 5hey can work on and the slower it goes, if, it wants to keep the same quality. Seeing the Waterblock being in auction is a really really big error, and can definitely come from not enough communication between a person that knows it has to be sent back and a person that's thinking of a charity
Not fully LTT related, but man is it hard to write an apology, everytime I read one online I’ve never seen people think that the person was truly apologetic.
Its only hard when you're a narcissistic egomaniac that finds it clinically impossible to admit even the smallest amount of fault without blaming the entire world for it .
Its no wonder why most internet apologies are written like this, because most people having to write them end up being in the position because they are narcissistic egomaniacs that think they can do no wrong to begin with.
I like GN and LTT for casual watching. But I'm very disappointed Steve opted to not do the proper thing and provide the accused party the opportunity to respond to his allegations. It comes off really hypocritical when he's calling out one media group for lack of ethics/integrity/accountability and rushing videos out without proper checks and procedure in place and then rushes a video out and doesn't give them a chance to respond first. And I don't say this just because it's GN and LTT. Could have been J2C and Hardware Unboxed or something and I'd still have this same opinion. I highly respect GN for the work they put in l, the content they make, and their quality, but this is a bit disappointing to see. Hopefully LTT cleans up their QC pipeline and thinks their actions through, and hopefully Steve at GN does too.
A bad day all around in my book.
I don't agree.
and then rushes a video out
I don't think this felt rushed. I think, as he said in the video, this has been brewing for months, and it felt thought through and thorough.
Steve opted to not do the proper thing and provide the accused party the opportunity to respond
I think if it was one mistake they would have done exactly that. But as it's been a consistent trend over months or even years of sloppiness and mistakes and rushed videos, you can't just have a word with someone and fix that overnight. I think publishing the video and their thoughts, and rallying the community to raise awareness and force them to improve, is the right move.
The most noticeable thing for me are the constant annotations. Sometimes there are so many that I'm not sure why a whole video is up if it's half assed and they want to salvage it through bandaids.
Bot holy shit they are become sloppy and borderline corrupt. Thanks to GN for calling them out.
LTT has lived long enough and grown large enough to see themselves being the villain. I suppose fame and wealth can corrupt a person easily, the arrogance in the response from Linus is disappointing.
LTT hasn't been a serious or informative tech channel for years, you don't watch their video for information but for entertainment. They try to right the course by creating the Lab team but miss the point when they don't change their mindset.
It's like Top Gear vs Fifth Gear back in the days. You don't buy a new car base on the reviews on Top Gear, likewise if I want useful consumer advice, LTT is the last place I look.
The arrogance Linus displays has been ever increasing for the past year. I've never followed LTT close enough to truly know how he treats people, but it's seemed to me that he's a bit of an obnoxious knob and belittles others.
Absolutely but I think it's a bit more than that. Linus is just not relevant to his own company anymore, it's grown beyond him. Honestly it's kinda a mark of success. Linus has the personality of a small to medium social media creator and it's gotten him this far. Fortunately and unfortunately his company is no longer just a social media group, they're expanding and Linus isn't skilled or experienced at that; he's a social media star. Hiring someone else to be CEO was a good idea, time will tell if Tong was a good choice. Honestly what we're watching is LMG going through a growing pain and hopefully they're better for it and don't close shop.
What they did to Billet Labs is evil. I hope LTT gets sued for it.
They've already paid what Billet requested, hopefully they also get some publicity out of this to help with the nonmonetary damages as well.
It's clear that it wasn't done maliciously, but there must be something seriously wrong with their processes for this to happen in the first place. The other comments they made were just adding insult to injury.
Edit: To clarify, they claimed to have accepted a quote that Billet sent them according to Linus on the forums. This ended up being a lie according to Billet.
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Having worked in jobs where you ship and receive stuff, you do certainly acquire a drawer full of strange stuff that is stuck in ownership limbo of "its not ours but we can't get it to the proper owner for one reason or another either" (especially when its an item crossing largely unrelated subsidiaries of a company)
I can 100% see a communication breakdown of "oops we need to send this back" then it not getting sent out and remaining in limbo, but the person in charge of the collection of ownership limbo items should be damn well aware that these are items that probably need to go back and should have stopped it from being auctioned off!
do we know how much was paid to ltt (or charity) for the cooler at auction? I haven't seen a figure
Mann this was juicy. Tech Jesus was pissed, goddamn.
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Is watching this video considered piracy if there are no ads to skip over?
Bro, the simple fact that Linus failed to recognize that ads are most of the time forced on you, with no paid opt-out alternative, had me cursing at him.
It's not piracy if I can't pay to get the product unaltered. PERIOD.
It's also that so many ads are malicious and present in incredibly bad faith. Maybe that ad from Welches is fine, even if I had to watch it 3 times back to back, but that mobile game ad that hits my block list for malware isn't. Treating them the same is what the website does, even though some are malicious, so I treat them the same and block them all.
Remember when they used an unlicenced version of OCCT commercially?
https://linustechtips.com/topic/1411603-ltt-is-stealing-software-from-occt-and-ignoring-his-emails/
And linus' response to it is the same smug doublespeak as he's using now. God I hate this dude.
Anyone else stop watching ltt already just because of boring topics, if you can even figure out what the topic is with their hyper clickbait titles?
I use DeArrow basically exclusively for LTT.
For those who don't know it, that's a crowd-sourced youtube title replacement script, intended to purge the platform from clickbait. Made by the same devs behind the SponsorBlock addon.
Yeah LMG is just a content farm at this point and they have maxed out their clickbaity titles with Linus making weird faces. It's a shame.
Yup, max out the potential for a channel so start another one and so on It's quite the furious wheel they have spinning
Stopped since 2017 when they started using dumb thumbnails and titles, I knew it was just going to be another clickbait channel and I was right. This channel started my hobby since 2011, I even made LTT forum account on day 1. But I found GN since, so that's nice.
I used to watch the wan show, but stopped because Linus was frankly becoming pretty unrelatable. It's sad to see them lose the plot like this, but I'm not surprised. I think Lmg has been growing far faster than they could keep ahead of, and the train is off the rails now...
I feel like growth is poison for content companies, especially niche content. I get where a million-view video and the associated cash is great reward. I get that people can consume content so much faster than it's created that a known creator's revenue is limited only by the rate they produce. Gotta be tempting to squeeze just a little more, cover a less interesting topic, or skip a difficult detail to get that extra bit of revenue. It's the fundamental process of enshittification, and it works on everything from LTT to EA to walmart.
Expecting people to give up money, rewards and fame - to stay a small dedicated provider with ideological purity - when there are crowds outside the door begging for just a little compromise, just this one time, is a big ask. But it's also why there's so much churn in media. Young turk comes in with great content, gets an audience, gives in to enshittification, and gets replaced by the next young turk.
I stopped watching when they got a Tuxedo laptop to review it, and instead of actually reviewing it the entire video was a shitpost because the laptops can have the keyboard font customized and the dumbass set it to wingdings.
I liked the LTT Translator twitter account before it got sold off / hacked / whatever. It was fun trying to guess what the fuck their stupid title even meant. At this point why even bother with a title, might as well just call each video "click me pls"
The dearrow extension normally has pretty sane titles for the videos. I cannot take a look at most of youtube without it.
They wouldn't do it if it didn't work, unfortunately.
Click me and send to 10 friends or your mother dies in her sleep tonight
I used to watch several videos a week, but now I find them outlandish and clickbaity, so I basically just watch LMG Clips.
With this latest piece of info I don't think I trust them anymore
Will Linus watch this one or will he just read the comments?
He already did, you can find it here:
I would quote it, but it is too long to be a reasonable comment.
Wow you’re right that is extremely long. Tldr seems to be he’s saying he didn’t do anything wrong and he’s disappointed Steve didn’t just send him a quick text about it. I feel like it would have been better for Linus to own the mistake at this stage and get the prototype thingy back as it’s not like he’s short on cash or anything. I’d say he comes off like a bit of a jerk. We’ll see how this one shakes out.
Here's an unreasonably long quote:
There won't be a big WAN Show segment about this or anything. Most of what I have to say, I've already said, and I've done so privately.
To Steve, I expressed my disappointment that he didn't go through proper journalistic practices in creating this piece. He has my email and number (along with numerous other members of our team) and could have asked me for context that may have proven to be valuable (like the fact that we didn't 'sell' the monoblock, but rather auctioned it for charity due to a miscommunication... AND the fact that while we haven't sent payment yet, we have already agreed to compensate Billet Labs for the cost of their prototype). There are other issues, but I've told him that I won't be drawn into a public sniping match over this and that I'll be continuing to move forward in good faith as part of 'Team Media'. When/if he's ready to do so again I'll be ready.
To my team (and my CEO's team, but realistically I was at the helm for all of these errors, so I need to own it), I stressed the importance of diligence in our work because there are so many eyes on us. We are going through some growing pains - we've been very public about them in the interest of transparency - and it's clear we have some work to do on internal processes and communication. We have already been doing a lot of work internally to clean up our processes, but these things take time. Rome wasn't built in a day, but that's no excuse for sloppiness.
Now, for my community, all I can say is the same things I always say. We know that we're not perfect. We wear our imperfection on our sleeves in the interest of ensuring that we stay accountable to you. But it's sad and unfortunate when this transparency gets warped into a bad thing. The Labs team is hard at work hard creating processes and tools to generate data that will benefit all consumers - a work in progress that is very much not done and that we've communicated needs to be treated as such. Do we have notes under some videos? Yes. Is it because we are striving for transparency/improvement? Yeah... What we're doing hasn't been in many years, if ever.. and we would make a much larger correction if the circumstances merited it. Listing the wrong amount of cache on a table for a CPU review is sloppy, but given that our conclusions are drawn based on our testing, not the spec sheet, it doesn't materially change the recommendation. That doesn't mean these things don't matter. We've set KPIs for our writing/labs team around accuracy, and we are continually installing new checks and balances to ensure that things continue to get better. If you haven't seen the improvement, frankly I wonder if you're really looking for it... The thoroughness that we managed on our last handful of GPU videos is getting really incredible given the limited time we have for these embargoes. I'm REALLY excited about what the future will hold.
With all of that said, I still disagree that the Billet Labs video (not the situation with the return, which I've already addressed above) is an 'accuracy' issue. It's more like I just read the room wrong. We COULD have re-tested it with perfect accuracy, but to do so PROPERLY - accounting for which cases it could be installed in (none) and which radiators it would be plumbed with (again... mystery) would have been impossible... and also didn't affect the conclusion of the video... OR SO I THOUGHT...
I wanted to evaluate it as a product, and as a product, IF it could manage to compete with the temperatures of the highest end blocks on the planet, it still wouldn't make sense to buy... so from my point of view, re-testing it and finding out that yes, it did in fact run cooler made no difference to the conclusion, so it didn't really make a difference.
Adam and I were talking about this today. He advocated for re-testing it regardless of how non-viable it was as a product at the time and I think he expressed really well today why it mattered. It was like making a video about a supercar. It doesn't mater if no one watching will buy it. They just wanna see it rip. I missed that, but it wasn't because I didn't care about the consumer.. it was because I was so focused on how this product impacted a potential buyer. Either way, clearly my bad, but my intention was never to harm Billet Labs. I specifically called out their incredible machining skills because I wanted to see them create something with a viable market for it and was hoping others would appreciate the fineness of the craftsmanship even if the product was impractical. I still hope they move forward building something else because they obviously have talent and I've watched countless niche water cooling vendors come and go. It's an astonishingly unforgiving market.
Either way, I'm sorry I got the community's priorities mixed-up on this one, and that we didn't show the Billet in the best light. Our intention wasn't to hurt anyone. We wanted no one to buy it (because it's an egregious waste of money no matter what temps it runs at) and we wanted Billet to make something marketable (so they can, y'know, eat).
With all of this in mind, it saddens me how quickly the pitchforks were raised over this. It also comes across a touch hypocritical when some basic due diligence could have helped clarify much of it. I have a LONG history of meeting issues head on and I've never been afraid to answer questions, which lands me in hot water regularly, but helps keep me in tune with my peers and with the community. The only reason I can think of not to ask me is because my honest response might be inconvenient.
We can test that... with this post. Will the "It was a mistake (a bad one, but a mistake) and they're taking care of it" reality manage to have the same reach? Let's see if anyone actually wants to know what happened. I hope so, but it's been disheartening seeing how many people were willing to jump on us here. Believe it or not, I'm a real person and so is the rest of my team. We are trying our best, and if what we were doing was easy, everyone would do it. Today sucks.
Thanks for reading this.
Linustechtips.com server is toast ATM
Only comments. Some new shmuck will have to condense it down to tldr it to him. Hot take will be funny like last time this happened
Almost forgot that happened. Thanks for reminding.
Damn this is eye opening for me. LTT was always my most trusted source for tech reviews. I noticed that they’d make little mistakes every once in a while, but didn’t realize it was part of a larger problem. I actually made a Ryzen 9 7900 buying decision recently because of this video which made it seem like the best value (especially compared to their very confusing 7950x3d review). After watching this GN video though, I feel stupid for not even thinking to check other channels before making a buying decision.
(Although honestly this is a major upgrade over my previous hardware, so even if it wasn’t the best possible option, it’s still a net positive for me.)
I really hope LTT takes this criticism seriously. It’s always gratifying to see misbehavior have consequences on the internet, but these independent reviewers are pretty much the only people on our side as consumers. I’d rather see a course correction than a crash, especially since LMG in particular has a uniquely powerful position and can have real impacts on manufacturers that benefit consumers.
LTT used to be fun because they'd get a bit more creative than other youtubers and weren't to cringewrothy (I'm talking back in the house with the kitchen set) and occasionally would go on some bonkers home engineering projects that were just stupid fun. But as my IT career grew I learned just how disconnected they are from enterprise IT and just how focused on gaming hardware they are (and just how boring gaming computers are) and now that I have a degree in networking and they've been struggling to level up their networking game I really just shake my head.
I watch them for entertainment purposes but anytime they look at server-y stuff I'm more watching to see how bad they are than to learn anything or see anything cool.
Its fine that they have their niche, its fine that they're trying to expand out of it, and I wish them the best, but they've got a concerning cultural problem that needs to be addressed before they can effectively grow more
Edit: wow this seemed so big when it was just a accuracy and integrity issue but now that seems so small with the new revelations from Madison. I wish everyone working the grind at LTT the best and hope everyone who sexually harassed and groped can find a nice thorny cactus as their new office chair
They're not even the only ones doing server/enterprise grade hardware anymore. And they're obviously incapable of competing in that area with more knowledgeable channels (outside of a few employees who can't carry a whole LTT video by themselves).
Any of their "engineering" content is like that for me. I'm primarily an embedded systems developer but in an industry that keeps me close to hardware and other engineering systems (including IT infrastructure) and I'm 100% with you on the watching out of morbid curiosity. I don't know necessarily how to do things the best, but I know enough to know when something could be better and what they have ain't it.
I don't know if I agree on the cultural problem, I think it's more of an experience problem. Almost everyone they hire, even for Labs has to have some kind of publication or writing background. You're not going to find good QA or test engineers by having that huge ask on top, so they're not getting the experience to test properly. I'm not sure they even recognize that performing the tests is like 10% of the total work.
I get the feeling Linus is just gonna double down on his bullshit on the wan show to justify it.
He already kinda did in the forums
Not a good look...
This should be a lesson for all. Never trust a single source, always be critical of the information presented.
My take on it:
We know that we’re not perfect. We wear our imperfection on our sleeves in the interest of ensuring that we stay accountable to you. But it’s sad and unfortunate when this transparency gets warped into a bad thing.
Yeah, well, that’s one of the main issues addressed in this video: You are not transparent about this, when you swap out videos without notice or bury corrections in a non-pinned comment.
Listing the wrong amount of cache on a table for a CPU review is sloppy, but given that our conclusions are drawn based on our testing, not the spec sheet, it doesn’t materially change the recommendation.
If the listing is wrong, who guarantees the lab tests on which the conclusion is based on are not wrong?
The thoroughness that we managed on our last handful of GPU videos is getting really incredible given the limited time we have for these embargoes.
Take the time it needs to produce correct reviews then. Who wants fast but false results?
The part that struck me was Linus talking about how he hopes Billet does well because it's a harsh industry. It's a harsh industry for Billet because the biggest reviewer in the space took their prototype, mis-tested it, panned it, and then sold it at auction. Trying to paint that as a one-off is difficult, because it wasn't a mixed bag on the quality of the experience. It was awful start to finish.
If I'm a small company trying to get a name in the space, I'd never go to LMG. "Trust me bro, we dunk on stuff, so you know we're honest," is a bad take if you're the one getting dunked on due to lazy journalism and R&D.
Followup on Linus' response from GN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3byz3txpso
we have a discussion on it going on here https://lemmy.ml/post/3376890?scrollToComments=true
I know saying "how many people still watch LTT" is kinda dumb with the views they pull in, but fuck haven't most people outgrown them? LTT helped me learn a lot of stuff when I started really getting into PC gaming decade ago, but after a few years I felt like it was just tech fluff videos. Most of their videos seemed like an ad for some fotm tech or just very basic concepts. I just don't see how people can still watch it after a few years just because it seems they make their videos to attract the lowest common denominator.
I agree that a large chunk of LMG content is vapid and surface level, and I was put off by them years ago because of it. Ironically though, I've found much of their newer output more appealing, not because of it's informational value, but because where else am I gonna see someone build a hacked together water loop with a car radiator?
I enjoy their content involving jank or overengineered solutions, their merch feels good (I would buy it even if it was just another brand like nike or adidas) and they arent as bone dry as GN, MKBHD is too mobile focused, Dave2D too regular consumer tech (like Laptops) focused, LTT has a bit of all.
The controversy he creates himself is surely valid but I enjoy the content more and the integrity he wants to stand for.If you disagree or want to discuss my opinion, feel free to ask why I enjoy it.
Integrity he wants to stand for means absolutely bunk if, when given the opportunity to actually behave with integrity, he instead doubles down and lashes out like a child, blaming everyone and everything but himself.
Integrity starts with accountability, and while he has always talked a big game about both, He's sadly found wanting for either.
For me they're basically just a bunch of guys fucking around with high end hardware. I dont care about any of the data they put out or their opinions on what tech I should buy.
The funniest thing to me, is that LTT would be massively improved if Linus would just fuck off and go away. He runs around like a ADHD Chicken on stimulants, constantly dropping and breaking shit, fumbling shit, and just being an overall annoying twat.
and hes been that way since the beginning, the only thing thats changed in time is that its gotten worse, to the point that I, personally, only ever stuck around to watch (Name Removed due threats from moderator to delete all my posts.) videos.. and after the whole backpack "just trust me bro" bullshit, even that wasnt enough to keep me around and I just bailed.
Much prefer people who know what they're talking about, and actually give a shit, and don't have a massive entitled stick up their ass. Like Hardware Unboxed, and GN.
You may not like Linus but he is undoubtedly a successful business person and a great entertainer for a large public. An opinion is no problem but these things are just hard facts. LMG is a big success and Linus has played a major role in it.
The numbers don't lie, content from LMG is just much more populair than content drom GN for example. It is way more accessible in my opinion. I feel like GN and LMG should not be compared as they have an entirely different audience. You seem to be a great example of that. If I want to have excellent reporting I go to GN if I just want a quick dopamine hit by seeing a few idiots cool a pc with an oversized turbine I go to LMG. I believe both are great but opinions differ.
Stopped watching them very shortly after they moved out the house, the videos became very click bait and felt disingenuous compared to their old kitchen content.
Luckily GN is top quality, exactly how every reviewer/channel should be. TechLinked is good tho, Riley is awesome, but that's the only LTT content I'll ever consume.
98% of my LTT viewing is done as background noise for whatever else I'm doing. The other 2% are me rewatching Scrapyard Wars.
I blocked their YouTube channel a few days after the algorithm recommended it to me sometime mid-last decade. All I saw was stupid clickbait titles and that guy’s face in punchworthy poses. Not for me.
I've only really found them entertaining in a "junk food diet" kind of way that most other channels don't really hit for me, and now that labs has come along I've been interested in seeing how that goes.
I can only think of a few channels that scratch the same "flaming train wreck you can't look away from" itch for me
So is it just me or did anyone else notice how the tone of LTT videos changed after Linus stepped down from CEO? Everything seems to be on rails with 'uncanny valley's levels of scripting.
I get it, production quality and writing getting 'better' but it feels like it's being forced whereas before things were more ad-lib. You can see pretty clearly the difference in tone between the podcast and their videos... Not sure how to reconcile the two of if there really is a need... But it has been bothering me lately. They went through a similar stage a few years ago where their style really bothered me, and then it got better... so maybe it's more the writing/direction than anything else which can change depending on who is working on a particular video.
Edit: I just got through this video and, yeah... A lot of their reporting errors seem concerning, if anything not because there are particular errors here and there but because conclusions are being drawn from errors. The frequency is pretty astounding too... Would highly recommend people watch this one, as ethical and impartial reporting is a dying art. Gamers Nexus definitely tries (although nobody is perfect, and sometimes their anal attention to detail can be frustrating) with Steve seemingly having his heart in the right place when it comes to providing information that consumers can utilize in good conscience when making decisions. I have my issues with some of Steve's reporting at times, but I seldom question the validity of the content, whereas now LTT kinda looks like a crap shoot. No more reliable than the clickbait thumbnails you see on every other channel, LTT notwithstanding.
As Linus mentioned, he was still in charge when these two things happened.
Not sure it’s the new management but it might be the schedule. Hell, the sheer amount of content they try to do per week is speculated to be the reason behind the problems GN is pointing out here. Is it when Linus stepped down? Or was it when they had to squeeze Gamelinked in?
Anytime they make a big change they have to adapt and they get rigid and then eventually they fall into the rhythm. Now they have the weight of Labs and perhaps that’s not going so well so it’s extra crunch time?
I hope they fix their problems, especially this Billet Labs thing.
If you care about accuracy and reporting, you won't be using video as your medium. You use video because you can monetize via "views," if you are trying to monetize, you don't really care about accuracy in your reporting.
Guess this is why GN and a few others were not at LTX
Billet Labs has a good case to sue LMG
I'm seeing 43k likes and 48k views. That's insane.
Dude sold out forever ago. ALL INFLUENCERS ARE JUST CORPORATE MOUTHPIECES.
I honestly don't believe this. I still believe Linus isn't a shill and usually has consumer interests at heart, I think the problem is that he's just pushing too hard and feels like he's in a fight for survival at all times, and I don't know if I can blame him for that, being a YouTuber is harsh. He tries to keep his company afloat to feed all his employees, but sometimes that focus on profit is to the detriment of quality and then fuckups happen. And I think Linus is too tunnel visioned on that profitability aspect to realise that stuff like this hurts his brand a lot more than he believes..
TLDR please?
LTT Prioritizes quantity of content over quality of content, knowingly pushes bad data, adds afterthought text updates (in the form of youtube comments) which never cover anything but the most egregious wrongs and sometimes dont even get pinned until called out, major conflicts of interest especially with noctua, ASUS, and Framework, oh.. and the got a prototype GPU block from a company, intentionally and knowingly mounted it to the wrong card, published the bad video and data anyway, then when criticized for that..Linus used the WAN show to attack the company claiming its products are failures that no one should ever buy.
Then, despite saying they would return the prototype several times, ended up selling it at auction instead.. Where it could eventually end up in the hands of a competitor.
and the worst thing about it all, is that its a known problem, that even LTT people in the recent ask LTT employees video all universally agree to the same basic premise of "To many videos, not enough time to polish/check"
LTT/LMG is trying to market themselves as a reviewer that presents data accurately but has made many mistakes along the way. It's hard to shorten a 44 min video into a few sentences so I think it's worth giving it a watch.
I don't doubt this video was hard for Steve to make. From what I can tell Steve and Linus are pretty friendly to each other. Steve was the first person to let Linus know he got hacked
@ANIMATEK @Dubious_Fart used kagi.com universal summarizer
for those on lemmy if the attached screenshots are not shown: https://mastodon.social/@bison/110889514073366301
Impressive
wow I didnt know Kagi could summarize videos. Thats really cool.
Anyone eles noticed that LTT (excluding LMG clips) have not dropped their usual daily videos yet. Leads me to believe they saw this GN video.
Good work Steve, they are already taking a bit more time on today's video at least!
They just released one. Probably triple checked it before publishing it too LOL
The frequency response graph used in headphones is not an accurate/standard way to measure microphones, and LTT labs doesn't have HVAC isolation.
Today's videos are already in the can Unless they are going back for re-edits Can't really change the content at this point Would they reshoot I could see them reevaluating videos currently in the pipeline Could be an interesting day for LMG Wonder if there will be a company meeting We'll see
Holy shit lol. I can never watch another Linus video again without thinking about this criticism.
10 minutes in, oof.
Not surprised, previous comments made by LTT employees in videos had me disliking them for awhile.
I used to like them, but last time I saw USB C iPhone on thumbnail for news video, which turned out to be absolutely not usb related apple news. That was disappointing.
Unfortunately I doubt there will be any consequences, even though other people probably would lose their jobs and never be able to work in the field again after that stunt. In the past it was just unreflected consumerism, wrong or inaccurate information etc, but this is terrible.
The only consequence so far is a nearly 4k drop on FP subscribers. Roughly $20k/m loss.
That's not saying much because they still have 40k subscribers.
expired
Wow that IS a lot.
I saw the video, read his response, and read a ton of comments on this. LMG isn't the only source I have for tech stuff and I don't like what's going on but I'm not going to dismiss Linus right away as "another sellout" or generally put him in a bad light.
I think we should give it time to develop, see what's done to correct errors and reconcile issues, then after that I think we'll have a more refined impression of him and this entire fiasco. It might take a couple of weeks or months but it's better than any sort of knee jerk reactions.
I just despise all the drama seeking. Frankly I think less of GN for starting shit. You can claim up and down that you do it "because you care" but you have to consider GN is also a content farm and has to decide where to spend their time and energy. Review new products? No. Investigate and tear down a competitor in a 45m long video? Yeah, let's spend time and effort on that!
No one is clean here.
Unfortunately corporations will be corporations and these things will always happen, once LMG stopped being Linus media group it became your usually shitty corporation focused purely on profit (while that was the point from the beginning at least then it was for the purpose of getting higher quality content and actually paying Luke)
The have to keep pumping out tons of videos or they take a big profit hit Linus put LMG in quite the pickle
Tempest in a teapot
Anyone who thinks a person reviewing a product is on their side is a mark. The issues with LTT videos is so obvious in hindsight that it's hilarious that the fans haven't or refused to notice. I honestly thought being shitty and approachable was their schtick? The people who are incredibly upset are likely to stan Gamers Nexus until they eventually get called out by another tech outlet for similar shit. The drama is fun though.
I feel like whatever point Steve is trying to make here could have been a community post or even a short rather than what looks like a 45 minute hit piece on his competitor.
This appears (from the thumbnail and first few minutes of content) to be drama for the sake of drama. If anyone can summarise to the contrary, please do.
This was a lot of words for someone who saw a thumbnail and a few minutes of a 40+ minute video
I'll have you know he uses Arch
Oh look, one of the people Steve talked out. Just dismissing legitimate criticism.
could have been a community post or even a short
That's been the problem, corrects get relegated to a useless stub rather than a genuine effort to set the record.
He is showing in video statements and fails done by LTT. There is nothing to water down to people like you. It’s either full data or you will misrepresent what was stated
Dude, at least watch the video before opening your mouth and inserting your foot.
Communit, post? Sorry but that would be a wall of text.
Short? Dude theres only 60 seconds. Even a good TLDR of a 44min script can et best be shortened to 15-20min