RiikkaTheIcePrincess, 9 months ago

What a bunch of pricks.

I hesitate to blame them all. In GN's video, some of the clips show LMG people seeming (to me? Somehow I don't see anyone else pointing this out???) anxious to terrified of Linus. In one of the WAN Show clips there's this meek, near-mumbled kind of "Uhm... Linus sir maybe if you'd, um... just tested it properly that could've been maybe better I guess? <.< v.v;" sort of thing, and the person who grabbed the wrong card barely squeaked out a response at all, but Linus just never seems to give a damn about anything except making the quickest possible bucks.

I don't know what's keeping everyone else there but I think at least some of those people are just trying to get by without incurring some kind of wrath as Linus himself repeatedly makes (or causes) a mess then arrogantly doubles, triples, quadruples down on it (or has someone else do so, or maybe other arrogant pricks are involved?) up to a point of "Okay, I messed up and I'll own that now everyone forget about it" after which business-as-usual resumes until the next mess. It seems like no one else has time to learn from any mistakes (or "mistakes") and those who do (presumably a hierarchy-related privilege) are unwilling or incapable.

Now, they may in fact be a bunch of pricks. I just feel like some of those people (such as the one suggesting that testing the water block correctly might made sense (before potentially killing a startup unfairly)) try to help but have no power to inhibit Linus's pompous profit-driven pissheadery.

monobot, 9 months ago

I can not watch the video now but I have read description.

Thing is I see them more as entertainers than IT professionals, so I don’t expect any valid data from them. If not before, it became obvious with the whole Linux for a month fiasco where he complains that it’s Linux’s falult he deleted important packages.

But I get it, youtube is forcing this dramatic, often, high performing videos on all creators. You can see it explained very often by various youtubers.

Of course they care more about quantity, because Algorithm will punish them for not publishing and they will disappear.

No one living from youtube can not be trusted right now, they are all forced to publish often clickbity dramatic videos.

Rentlar, 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago)

Edit note: The Twitter thread from the former employee eclipses either issue from here. I still think a big root cause for all of this is the pressure and exhaustion coming from their pacing/content schedule. It will take a bit more than that to resolve this.

I watched the occasional LTT video, they are entertaining and helpful at a general understanding but I’ve often taken their data with a grain of salt.

Emily

spoiler tw(formerly Anthony)

Young was the one writer at LTT who stood out as really knowing their stuff. She also was their in-house expert with Linux! (*Note: nothing happened to her at LMG, I’m using past tense because I’m not up to date with the latest roles she might be in)

Linus has been way more focused on running the business than the tech, especially compared to his days at NCIX and some years after.

The Billet situation sounds like a fuckup. So long as they make it right with them I don’t care tbh.

The data integrity issues and way too frequent post-edit corrections is imperative for LMG to fix, if they want their media to be trustworthy (like if they’re hyping up their labs)

Luckily, they’ve said what the fix is themselves and it’s relatively simple. All it really takes is them to either slow down with the rate of content to be able to carefully review it, or bring on more hosts and editors so that mistakes and errors can be caught and re-shot before publishing, and that due diligence is applied when preparing a product review.

Linus’ response is just meh, not good nor bad. The one thing is I don’t buy is Linus’ line of “just talk to us”. The community told them plenty of times, the writers and Linus themselves were very well aware of the problems of rushing and releasing half-baked content. Even if GN told them, the direction they were going with Linus Media Group and the new CEO and the buyout offer and all of that suggests where LMG’s wouldn’t be concerned with it as much as making sure the timing of their content maximizes revenue. Data issues brought to them by GN and the community would be cast to the wayside with just a footnote and silent correction, maybe with a couple empty words sprinkled on top.

So I’ll say it again to Linus from a fellow Canadian, whether he’ll listen or not: “Slow down, bud!”

Vodulas, 9 months ago

Hey bud, no need to deadname anyone.

pkulak, 9 months ago

I thought you had to refer to a person by their old name for that to be the case, not just mention the existence of a former name. I could be wrong though.

FfaerieOxide, 9 months ago

I could be wrong though.

You could be, and are wrong.

[Image: Jack Black as Barry from 2000's High Fidelity pointedly points at Todd Louiso's character and tells her she is wrong about the existence of a definite article in the title of Marie DeSalle's album]

Vodulas, 9 months ago

Using the name is still deadnaming. Think of it like this. If you changed your name from Jim to John and saw a friend on the street, would you want them to say, “Hi John formerly Jim”? You’d likely just want them to call you by what your name is now. Add to that the likely dysphoria caused by some using a trans person’s dead name, and it is now causing harm for no real reason. When in doubt, just call people what they want to be called.

lowleveldata, 9 months ago

But it is natural to bring it up if you’re talking to a common friend that isn’t aware of the change of name. OP was talking to us comment reader instead of that person.

Nighed, 9 months ago

If they hadn’t done that, I would have had no idea who they were talking about. Sure don’t use their old name when talking to them, but you have to use it sometimes when talking about them or people will have no clue who you are talking about.

pkulak, 9 months ago

But your example just referred to someone by their old name. Not saying you’re wrong, but that’s a terrible example. Haha

Better example would be: Friend says, “Hey John, how are you! Remember when you used to go by Jim? Boy, those were crazy times back then.”

Is that deadnaming?

EDIT: my bad. Just re-read the OP post and your example is dead on. For some reason I had it different in my head. Never mind!

randomname01, 9 months ago

Thing is, a lot of people just aren’t aware of Emily’s transition, because she’s been in very few LTT videos since she came out. It makes sense to quickly mention what people used to know her as.

If she had been in dozens of videos since coming out your point would make sense, but she just hasn’t.

FfaerieOxide, 9 months ago

No, it actually never makes sense to deadname a trans person.

Rentlar, 9 months ago

I use her current preferred pronouns, there are multiple Emilys at the LMG team and for people that might not recognize who I’m talking about if they haven’t watched LTT for a while (since 3 months ago). I figured by adding “formerly”, I was clear that it’s a name she no longer goes by and doesn’t feel represented herself well.

peregrinus, 9 months ago

you were fine, some people just love to pounce on anything. one video is all that was released, it’s completely fine to explain that in this context. if we were talking to her directly, sure.

Souvlaki, 9 months ago

Disagree. As a casual LTT watcher i had no idea who Emily was until they said her former name. I’m sure there are others like me who don’t keep up with the latest happenings in every youtube channel. There’s no offense in providing extra information for clarity.

Hyperi0n, 9 months ago

Transphobe.

RiikkaTheIcePrincess, 9 months ago

(Referring to other replies, sarcastically) I friggin' love having people explain how it's totally cool to do to people all' the things they (or people like them, in relevant contexts) say not to! Like when five freaking people people show up, none citing so much as a blog post or having met a trans person once, explaining that it's totally cool to deadname someone as long as it doesn't bother the person doing the deadnaming.

I'm just a little tired of this "it's fine and you're the real problem for whining about it" (not quoting anyone currently present... I think) kind of attitude. Maybe I'd be singing a different tune if my convenience got to override everyone else's comfort and even wellbeing.

Edit: At least I don't feel so compelled to join Beehaw any more. Certainly not the uniformly careful bunch I'd, unreasonably I suppose, imagined. Silver linings!

deFrisselle, 9 months ago

Anthony was a vastly underutilized resource for them Such a waste

Nexnecis, 9 months ago

Great video, a lot of the benchmark stuff I was unaware of because I don't pay THAT much attention to the wider youtube review community, but I Did notice that waterblock review when it went up on LTT. Go and watch it, it's honestly embarrassing how unprepared and silly it was. As a comedy sketch it's fine, but as a review of a prototype it's really really embarrassingly under prepared. It brings to mind something like an Asmondgold hardware review... "I don't know, let's just try this".

To see they auctioned off a prototype device after that "review" is kinda disgusting (sorry for the hard word, but it's how I feel).

EvilColeslaw, 9 months ago

Tbh that’s how almost all of their projects seem to be now. Woefully unprepared, full of jank.

reddithalation, 9 months ago

i watch ltt for alex messing around, and every now and then a video of linus wasting money on cool testing equipment for some reason. I’ve always assumed GN is superior for actual testing.

polygon, 9 months ago

Fuck LTT for what they did to Billet Labs.
I'm not writing an essay about it, GN already did. I'm done.

Xamrica, 9 months ago

My biggest problem right now with LTT:

He has literally admitted that they have too much to do right now (see linustechtips.com/topic/…/27/#comment-16079025)

but at the same time he doesn’t see the need to reduce the number of videos to achieve the required quality and just tells people to “stay tuned”.

I find that very strange to be honest.

TopHat, 9 months ago

His comment didn’t address two key issues for me:

• The “crunch”/tight scheduling of projects which led to sloppiness to begin with
• The constant need to correct, ranging from simple mistakes to very problematic methods.

I’ve been enjoying solely the WAN Show, but hearing about constant mistakes in benchmarks while praising “We want to show factual information on benchmarks for once.”, is rubbing me in the wrong way. You can’t rush benchmarking without QA and publish those results as fact. You get to choose for accuracy, or fast to churn content.

And Linus not mentioning something concrete on the first issue is worrying to me, not showing a clear intent to ease on rushing those benchmarks.

Not to mention, it’s worth taking down a video if benchmarka are wrong even if the conclusion is “most likely to remain the same”, which one cannot conclude with certainty without redoing it. It would be better transparency wise to either not knowingly publish wrong information, or put a more clear notice on said videos besides the description and a pinned comment.

parrot-party, 9 months ago

It's because Linus still has startup brain. He was squeezing blood from the stone for the first few years and his success then makes him believe that he needs to maintain that same mentality now.

Fortunately, he's also realized that he doesn't like running a large company and he's hired a CEO. Unfortunately, said CEO is still stuck in his previous role and won't actually be starting full-time for another few months. So now the company gets to sit in an awkward limbo of Linus checking out but Tarren not being ready to take over.

Once he is able to be a real CEO of LMG, I'm willing to bet things will start to dramatically change. Tarren has been running businesses as businesses for a while now and thus should know how to shape the company. He'll be able to adjust the goals and fix the spends to align with those goals. Since the company is privately owned, as long as Linus doesn't step on the process, it should go pretty well.

h14h, 9 months ago

I really hope stepping down as CEO leads to Linus surrounding himself with people he trusts to call him out when he’s missing something.

He strikes me as the kind of person who is susceptible to a few certain mental traps you kinda don’t want to see in a leader of a large influential organization:

1. Taking an “ends justifies the means” mindset (e.g. stepping on the “growth” gas pedal and accepting sloppiness because it will get better later with Labs)
2. Letting “objective facts” justify big subjective decisions w/o much consideration (e.g. thinking the Billet Labs video didn’t need to be re-shot because the “objectively” product rec conclusion wouldn’t have been different)
3. Substituting actual solutions to problems w/ commitments to solving them (e.g. implementing “Accuracy KPIs” instead of slowing the pace of video releases)

None of these constitute outright malice, IMO, but boy can they lead to a problematic working environment.

I’m sure there will be quite the flame war as a result of this, which I think is a bummer. Linus strikes me as someone who’s acting in good faith, but has an unshakable habit of making rushed decisions without considering the full scope of their impact, and is (or has been) lacking the appropriate feedback structure to help him learn to either a) make more thoughtful decisions, or b) fully delegating those decisions to folks who are better equipped to make them.

Here’s hoping this leads to positive change.

twistedtxb, 9 months ago

I agree. I can already see a slight shift in his attitude since he stepped down, but clearly it’s not enough.

parrot-party, 9 months ago

Linus is surrounded by people who can call him on his bullshit. Luke is very aware of the shit Linus steps in and lets him know. Linus just kinda sucks at publicly admitting it, at least not without getting his own jab in. Hence taking over the "Trust Me Bro" joke.

Linus takes all criticism on LMG as a personal attack regardless of his involvement. Hopefully, once Tarren steps in, he'll be able to wrangle Linus and just let LMG handle the public relations side.

NaoPb, 9 months ago

This is the main issue I have with Linus. Doubling down on dumb takes.

dolphone, 9 months ago

Linus takes all criticism on LMG as a personal attack regardless of his involvemen

I mean, AFAIK he built that company off the ground - yes likely privileged, I saw a video where it’s mentioned he and his partner lived rent free in his dad’s house. And yes, likely not alone. But still.

Makes sense he’d see criticisms of the company as attacks that he needs to personally take on. It’s not the best approach, but totally understandable. Lots of people’s livelihoods at stake by now, too.

Norgur, 9 months ago

Wait... There are still people out there who use LMG as an actual review source?
I just watch them for their stupid vids.

Valdair, 9 months ago

They are trying to break in to the serious technical reporting space with the Labs project, which is why this video is coming out now.

li10, 9 months ago

Clickbait used to be reserved for the title/thumbnail, but now it’s ingrained in the content itself and goes hand in hand with the drop in quality.

Before I stopped watching them I noticed the drop in quality. Can’t remember which video, but there was one with so many corrections it was absolutely ridiculous.

SkepticElliptic, 9 months ago

He’s Targeting a younger audience as they are more likely to spend money on stuff.

ThunderingJerboa, 9 months ago

I mean the quality of the test data is slipping but

"He’s Targeting a younger audience as they are more likely to spend money on stuff."

What younger audience has the income for an $80 screwdriver and a $200+ backpack? I think you may need to think out your point a bit more since nah I don't think they are targeting a "younger" audience those in the sub 20 category. I think they are primarily focusing on just being a "entertainment" product rather than a informative review one. They do fine with technical stupid jank shit but probably shouldn't be trusted for specs for the moment but at the end of the day I think labs will still probably be better than userbenchmark (even though that is a pretty low bar).

SkepticElliptic, 9 months ago

Rich kids

Meganium97, 9 months ago

Not excusing the backpack, but the screwdriver was actually pretty good, almost worth the price.

lonewalk, 9 months ago

I own both products and use both, I think either were good and worth the money, but either are inaccessible to most kids. No chance in hell I would’ve gotten a $200 backpack during high school or college.

lowleveldata, 9 months ago

Is it real that Linus publicly said that they can’t justify putting in another half day to ensure the data is correct before publishing it? Why would anyone watch their low quality content which they admit to be worthless?

Default_Defect, 9 months ago

IIRC, his justification was something to the effect of, even if the data presented is incorrect the conclusions were reached with the right data, so the conclusion wouldn’t change.

But how do we know for sure they used the right data for their conclusion? If they can’t take the time to fix issues during the edit, how do we know that the entire process isn’t flawed?

He thinks hes got it figured out because he knows something we don’t know, but if we are to trust him, WE NEED TO KNOW.

JCPhoenix, 9 months ago

The weird part of that is the the amounts he’s saying it would cost/time to re-run the test – $100-500 (probably like that pay for a employee’s day) – are nothing in the context of a company. Especially one that was sold or offered $100million. My company run on like a $3million budget. A few hundred dollars is nothing to us. That’s a staff lunch or our bar tab sometimes. If the retesting costs like $5000…OK, that’s certainly something to pause and think about. But a few hundred? A day or half a day for an employee to re-do the test? That’s too much?

Maybe to the average person, the average viewer, that sounds like a lot of money. But not to a business. Certainly not one as large as LMG.

SpathiFwiffo, 9 months ago

Even more ridiculous when LMG could monetize that 500$ of time spent into another video and make the money back.

QHC, 9 months ago

The video from GN had footage from WAN show where he said that, so yes. I have not personally looked up the context, but it also sounds very much in character for how Linus thinks these days, so I am not at all surprised.

I also think it's an excuse to cover up the real problem: complete disorganization and the extreme pace of production. In the video itself, Linus seems legitimately upset with his employee that didn't even realize they had the wrong GPU. He did not seem surprised, however, which is very telling.

peter, 9 months ago

Linus’ response is here: linustechtips.com/topic/…/16/#comment-16078641

verysoft, 9 months ago

Ahaha. He managed to write all that and say nothing, he really needs professional advice before making public statements, he can't help but jump in with his first thoughts. Classic linus though just deflecting "we got some really big things coming up guys! forget about this!"

IronKrill, 9 months ago

This response at least answers the most important question. They are paying Billet for the prototype. Personally I think they should do more than cover the raw cost, but at least they have done something.

mom, 9 months ago

They should cover R&D costs too, not just the cost of manufacture and materials.

theo, 9 months ago

Linus commented on this later in the thread saying “Billet sent us a quote. I don’t know or care how they arrived at the value. If they’re good, I’m good.” So hopefully that was all taken into account.

IronKrill, 9 months ago

Thanks for the update!

Fizz, 9 months ago

Dam that response sucked.

OsrsNeedsF2P, 9 months ago

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.

He wrote an entire article but still thinks his video cadence is good. Reminds me of my current CEO, as the sand empire he built for the past 4 years starts to crumble beneath him

Ilandar, 9 months ago

like the fact that we didn’t ‘sell’ the monoblock, but rather auctioned it for charity due to a miscommunication

This is one of the main justification’s Linus uses for claiming the journalistic moral high ground in that reply. First of all, correct me if I’m wrong, but the video in question didn’t once claim that the cooler was “sold” - rather that it was “put up for auction”. Which doesn’t contradict or even misrepresent anything that actually happened. Secondly, a debate over whether it was sold for profit or auctioned off for charity is largely irrelevant anyway because the actual problem here is that LMG attempted to offload the product to a third party after receiving requests to return it to the manufacturer (and promising multiple times to do so). Linus is trying to use the charity angle to frame himself as the benevolent and misrepresented good guy just trying to do the right thing, but in the process is lying about what was actually said and is displaying a complete lack of awareness over what the actual problem here is. Signing off with this just makes him look even worse:

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.

He’s pretending he has the moral high ground, whilst continuing to take snipes and potshots, in a poorly worded apology where he admits he is in the wrong. The dude just sounds salty that someone dared to call him out. His ego can’t handle it and now he’s desperately floundering around attempting to find some way to damage the credibility of the other person.

Whom, 9 months ago

Eh, I’d say the difference between selling it for themselves and for charity is meaningful. One seems like a play for dollars taking advantage of their connections while the other just sounds like a communication fuckup where the ones taking care of the block weren’t in contact with the ones making promises to return it. Neither is good, of course, but to someone outside the situation they do impact my view of the company differently.

Regardless, the main issue is their absurd pace and he doesn’t address that at all. I hope their new CEO is more willing to budge on that than Linus has been, but it’s too early to tell.

amju_wolf, 9 months ago

It doesn’t matter if they auctioned it for profit or charity. They still do it for profit (that they do get), just not monetary. The value they gain by such an event is much higher than any price they could have auctioned it for.

Making it an excuse is an extremely bad take, not to mention that GN did say it was an auction, and Linus probably doesn’t even know that because he didn’t watch the video, he only read the comments…

QHC, 9 months ago

It isn't meaningful if the video he is reacting to didn't claim LMG sold it for profit in the first place.

NightOwl, 9 months ago

To me attempts to play up the charity angle in a mishap just comes off as emotionally manipulative, which is generally never going to be a good look for someone who isn’t a fan willing to give the benefit of the doubt. It doesn’t matter who it is from or what company.

He needs a PR team.

Ilandar, 9 months ago

Neither is good, of course, but to someone outside the situation they do impact my view of the company differently.

Which is probably the intended tactic here. Pretend you’ve been misrepresented as having sold something that isn’t yours for profit, then clarify that it was actually just a mix-up and you were trying to do the right thing. People focus on the ethical difference between the strawman scenario you created and what actually happened and think “hey, that’s not so bad actually”, so you get some forgiveness without ever properly acknowledging the real problem - that you attempted to redistribute something that wasn’t yours, without permission from the real owner. Despite Linus’s claims, he really doesn’t address that at all in his “apology”. It’s mostly just fake moral grandstanding over “journalistic practices”, portraying the person who is reporting on this issue as the true villain.

Whom, 9 months ago

I don’t know why you say “pretend” there. Having seen the GN video first, the tone and lack of specificity definitely led me to believe it was being sold for profit (I was surprised when I found out it was for charity), and I would totally want to clear that up if I were in Linus’ position.

I dunno, I don’t really care that much about a company screwing over another company and then paying them back once it’s publicized. Both options come off to me as the kinds of minor transgressions that I assume happen regularly and aren’t really the kind of thing people who aren’t personally involved should care much about. For me, the big problems are the slipping quality of their test results and other issues caused by their release schedule and I wish GN didn’t even bother bringing up the auction in the first place. Doing it for profit impacts my view differently from doing it for charity, but it’s all just peanuts in the end.

Ilandar, 9 months ago

I don’t know why you say “pretend” there. Having seen the GN video first, the tone and lack of specificity definitely led me to believe it was being sold for profit

Because Linus put sell in quotation marks, implying GN misdirected viewers on this point when in fact no such thing happened. GN literally said the item was “put up for auction at [LMG’s] Extra Life auction event”. Extra Life is a very well-known charity and the fact that you weren’t aware of that is definitely not evidence of a lack of “proper journalistic practices” as claimed by Linus.

Whom, 9 months ago

I dunno, I’d expect journalists to provide that information instead of assuming you’re familiar with a charity which has a name that sounds like any ol gaming event. I don’t think it was done out of malice but I do think it’s your job as a journalist to recognize how that will sound to people unfamiliar with the charity and to inform them in turn. Leaving that ambiguity makes GN’s argument’s sound stronger to those uninformed and I think most writers are familiar with that effect. You aren’t saying anything untrue or even really lying by omission, but you are making use of people’s ignorance.

My point isn’t that that was some major deception or a massive problem, just that if I was on the other end of that I would want it to be very clear what that auction was being run for, as it can impact if people think you’re being malicious or if you’re just incompetent. God knows LTT makes bigger mistakes regularly nowadays.

(and yes, I do think Linus pinpointed the issue about the block because it’s the easiest to address without changing anything or addressing any real problems)

Ilandar, 9 months ago

I dunno, I’d expect journalists to provide that information instead of assuming you’re familiar with a charity which has a name that sounds like any ol gaming event.

It’s a perfectly valid assumption to make, considering Extra Life is the most well-known gaming related fundraising event (not a charity, that was a mistake on my part) and GN is a channel dedicated to PC gaming. Ultimately not every piece of content on the internet is going be be perfectly understandable for you. That is not necessarily an indication of a problem with the content itself.

My point isn’t that that was some…massive problem

But that is what Linus himself suggested. The very first point he makes is that this video is a case of poor “journalistic practices” and that it was not made in good faith. The crux of this argument is that GN misled viewers over the sale of the item, which is a complete fabrication on Linus’s part.

Voyajer, 9 months ago

He did say in the video it was being auctioned off for Extra-Life.

const_void, 9 months ago

The thumbnails LTT uses tells you everything you need to know about his content and company.

dolphone, 9 months ago

This is judging a book by its cover. Not really helpful to any discussion.

lowleveldata, 9 months ago

There are cases where a book’s content matches its cover. They are saying LTT is one of those cases

jawsua, 9 months ago

To be fair, this is how the YouTube algorithm requires big channels to act to maximize views, ads, and money. They’ve got way too many people reliant on that income to do anything different than exactly what best optimization strategies work

const_void, 9 months ago

big channels to act to maximize views, ads, and money

More proof LTT is just a corporate business shill

Snowcano, 9 months ago

If your organization is too big to act with integrity then maybe it’s time to downsize a bit.

pineapplelover, 9 months ago

I’ve always found the titles to be clickbaity and uninformative. If I want to look up their videos again I would have no idea what the title is to look up.

Hamartiogonic, 9 months ago

Normal title: THE BEST THING EVER!!!

Dearrow title: device XYZ is a bit meh

Voyajer, 9 months ago

It doesn't help that the titles get changed a handful of times throughout the release day so even if you remember the name it may not be the same if you want to re-watch it.

esther, 9 months ago

this is a YouTube problem, not an LMG one unfortunately. nearly all successful creators will A/B test various titles and thumbnails until The Algorithm™ is happy

barsoap, 9 months ago

It’s called the Strange Applications of the Magnus Effect effect.

…and, of course, the current title of that video contains “unreasonably effective”, a meme, same as considered harmful.

pineapplelover, 9 months ago

Yeah I think LTT content has really declined over the years. They’re spread so thin now they’re churning out a bunch of low quality content rather than a few accurate and entertaining videos.

avidamoeba, 9 months ago

Nah, it’s always been shit.

EvilColeslaw, 9 months ago (edited 9 months ago)

It’s been clear for quite a while that they’ve focused only on growth/expansion with more channels, the lab, so many new employees, etc and at the same time you can see the sloppiness getting worse with lack of preparation, lack of quality control to meet deadlines, etc.

The Billet Labs thing is absolutely inexcusable. Shitting on the product despite LMG being the one responsible for not even having the correct GPU for it, giving it a bad review, then doubling down when called out over a couple hundred bucks of time? The auctioned off prototype is so much worse as well. Not sure of the Canadian terms but in the US it’d potentially be theft by conversion. Literally sold someone else’s property. Even if you give them the benefit of the doubt and accept it as an accident, it seems like more evidence of whoever is running their logistics department being incompetent IMO.

li10, 9 months ago

One thing that bothers me about the billets stuff is they stand by their core point, which is that it’s a useless product.

But that’s not the only thing they’ve claimed. They also said it’s a bad product that doesn’t work properly, thus damaging the company’s reputation.

To most people that’s a significant difference for how they view the company:

“Useless” product that works well at what it does = hopefully this company will make something more relevant in future

“Useless” product that doesn’t even work properly = I’ll avoid this company in future

N1NJ4W4RR10R_, 9 months ago

Stealing and selling their best prototype also means they couldn’t send it to a better reviewer to demonstrate it isn’t a bad product.

Honestly atrocious behaviour from them over this. Any 1 bit of this would be bad, but all of them together could absolutely ruin a start-up. And all because Linus didn’t want to spend “up to” $500 worth of people’s time.

ThunderingJerboa, 9 months ago

I would disagree. Linus has a tendency to put his foot in his mouth or probably say he phrases many of these discussions in very bad ways. You see this with him talking about "Is using adblocking piracy" or "Warranties are only trustworthy as the company you buy them for" (Trust me bro) or the many other controversial views he has had. Where at the face of it it looks pretty incendiary but if you ignore what he said initially and look at what he is actually meaning to say. I think the whole Billet labs' cooler thing was a stupid video and they should have done it with a 3090 TI FE as it was meant for but Linus meant it was a "bad product" because its a $900 cooler for a last gen cooler on a 1800+ GPU. Anyone willing to spend that amount of money is probably going to spend it on the newest thing, that being the 4090. Now where this comes to bite Linus in the ass is they have a preorder for a 4090 fe (for the same price as the 3090 ti one) here Which is set to release around next month or November. Now its clear many things weren't discussed but off the broken concepts that Linus was presented/or at least absorbed he isn't wrong that noone would want a exotic cooler with a last gen gpu but its clear there was a major breakdown in the communication pipeline here.

Edit: Haven't had any comments yet but I will say LTT really done fucked up with the whole auctioning off the prototype and its clear there is some issues with the organization of LTT. I don't think they did this out of malice more they had a contact who didn't talk to the logistics team or the team handling LTX. So out of mistake the prototype got sold even though they said they would send it back. That is pretty god damn egregious. I can understand why there was a fuck up but man they really screwed the pooch on this one.

NaoPb, 9 months ago

The problem I have with this is that if he’s known for these things and he knows it, why not hire someone to do the communication for him instead of making the same mistakes every time. Or is he too stubborn or not smart enough to realise the damage he is doing to his brand?

NightOwl, 9 months ago

I think needing to write a wall of text to say Linus said this but he actually meant… shows a need for Linus to move away from off the cuff segments, and stick to scripted content.

It’s not just a Linus thing, but for those who are strongly associated with a company brand it’s the better move to start distancing personal opinion pieces from what can be associated with the company. He’s not just some random employee of LTT who can have their thoughts hand waived away as not representing the views of the company. LTT has a way to go before everything stops being associated with Linus when it comes to the good or the bad.

ThunderingJerboa, 9 months ago

I would disagree. These goes all the way back to the common discussion of how we the consumers want "transparency" yet we really don't from what I'm seeing here. We want to hear all the good but not the bad. Again I think Linus has some very bad takes but to explain context is very important and can be a lengthy process.

I rather see the person who is making the sausage talk about making the sausage than some stupid pr lackey who is going to give us a presentation about rainbows and sprinkles. The infamous Blizzard moment of "Do you guys not have phones", is a very similar example. A designer of the games who probably isn't the best at PR spoke candidly and it became a meme moment. It was 100% tone deaf and I don't disagree it was a bad comment but I rather Blizzard or any game developer talk about their game than some community manager giving what we want to hear only. Look at the contrast of the Elder scrolls 6 announcement, where gamer were satisfied because at the end of a presentation they decided to drop a pointless trailer (after they announced a forgotten mobile game) to satisfy the audience. Its god damn insulting that they think that was good enough yet here we are 5 years after that announcement and we haven't seen shit. The opening ltt clip in the GN video had a similar thing.

QHC, 9 months ago

How do they know it's a bad product if they didn't bother to test it under the conditions it was designed for? It was a prototype, not a final product. In the original video, Linus is surprised (and maybe a bit upset) that the other guy didn't grab the right card or even notice that he didn't get the right card.

And to the point of the comment you replied to: it doesn't matter what the cost of the cooler was. If it was the best of the best then it was worth showing that. LTT does not seem to have a consistent viewpoint of "practicality". Even if we ignore that, saying "this product isn't worth the cost" is very different than the "useless" comment they ended up with.

The whole situation is what I like to refer to as "fractally wrong". No matter the perspective, how close or far away, it's always wrong.

ThunderingJerboa, 9 months ago

Again if you are charging 800+ dollars and again to Linus' point of view he wasn't aware of the 4090 FE edition of this cooler, doesn't make sense for buyers. Most of the video they are complimenting the machining of the piece.

The best case scenario for this thing is the temps are slightly better but the experience of building with it is a
nightmare and the advantages over literally any other solution are negligible it's a cool concept but unfortunately I think that there are very few buyers for it with that said you know if it tickles your fancy but you're thinking yeah cool idea but maybe if it was a little more like this I wouldn't be surprised if these guys could basically make just about anything for you they've definitely got the manufacturing chops

I don't think they ever say useless in the original video. Could you provide me a link of them doing so but gave it a quick scan via transcript and not seeing it. To me they just say its a bad product (with Linus' limited knowledge of said product).

QHC, 9 months ago

he wasn't aware of the 4090 FE edition of this cooler

Yes he was, he commented on it in the original video, which the GN video included.

I don't think they ever say useless in the original video.

My bad, I should not have quoted a word that they didn't use directly. But still, his final conclusion, as included in the GN video, is that nobody should buy it, and not just because of cost.

ThunderingJerboa, 9 months ago

Yes he was, he commented on it in the original video, which the GN video included.

maybe I'm blind deaf and stupid but the link for that say nothing about Linus knowing about the 4090 FE edition of the cooler. Just that they used a 4090 in the original video and that was bad, which I again agree with and said he probably should have used a 3090TI.

My bad, I should not have quoted a word that they didn't use directly. But still, his final conclusion, as included in the GN video, is that nobody should buy it, and not just because of cost.

Because its a 800+ dollar of copper for a gpu and cpu cooling. Even if it was 20 degrees lower, you are spending half of what you spent on a fucking GPU on copper (that is magnificently manufactured/milled). This is so niche its just a bad product since the tolerances are so tight as shown in the video it only works on one type of gpu and/or cpu. Like its clear Billet labs is doing fantastic work on the machining but no reasonable consumer should ever buy this. This is so unreasonable and that is the point Linus is making. Its a cool project that Billet labs is making but there is almost no practical purpose for it.

Edit: Like their business model is so niche. If anything this feels like a way to spin the company in the direction of making custom milled part for commercial entities that need custom solutions. The consumer market isn't a good market for them.

GiuseppeAndTheYeti, 9 months ago

Now, selling a prototype that was sent to you to make a video on is not good obviously, but as long as they get compensated for it, it should be no big deal. Logistical fuck ups happen and this isn’t new or uncommon. The whole idea of Linus ruining their public image based on a “bad faith” representation of the product has little standing in my mind. The crux of his assessment of the product is spot on and you also touched on this. There’s like 4 people willing to spend as much on a cooling block made from billet copper as their GPU. Regardless of current Gen or last Gen. Most people are just going to save that money to buy the next generation graphics card or upgrade elsewhere in their build where the price/performance is much more reasonable.

bijuice, 9 months ago

They might have sold it to a competitor so this could be a big deal. Not to mention this was one of Billet Lab’s only prototype and could’ve set them back months in terms of R&D.

frogman, 9 months ago

not to cast doubt on anything he says here, but steve has increasingly been making ‘dunk’ videos for the past year or two. i feel like his channel has been trying to find (or create) exposés, because those are the videos that pop off. starting from the video of that NZXT case that caused fires.

again, not to cast doubt on the experiences of billet labs, but i question steve’s intentions in presenting this. i hope this discussion doesn’t end up revolving around gamers nexus.

Demigodrick, 9 months ago

Have only seen the clip of the LMG employee saying what they said from GN’s video, but seems quite an over-reaction from GN and the other company IMO. Definitely some form of baiting for views, even if parts of the video are valid.

envis10n, 9 months ago

LTT: says they want more accuracy, so they build a whole fucking lab for it.

Also LTT: puts bad data into the video anyway because time

That’s literally enough said. It’s not an attack on LMG, it’s pointing out legitimate concerns about LMGs internal processes because these easy to catch errors are getting through all the time.

They test a water block prototype on a card it wasn’t designed for, and then review it as a finished product with the bad data.

It’s a pattern over a long period of time that has been called out by the community. GN is fully right to be putting this out there. Even if you disagree with Steve’s assessment, he’s right to be pointing out things he has concerns with.

NightOwl, 9 months ago

Yeah, once you stop playing up the entertainment angle, but try to be a go to resource for consumer buying decisions the kid gloves come off. Hashing things out privately in that area is how you lose legitimacy if trying to seem credible and not playing favorites is the image you are trying to project to viewers.

envis10n, 9 months ago

Right. Many are hitting with the “it should have been handled in private” line, and it’s kind of annoying. Journalists report on things, and GN did just that. Reported on an issue that has been gaining in public discussion over time. This deserved transparency, and I hope that having it put out there will help LMG/LTT fix their shit. I’m sure I can speak for most of us in saying that we WANT LMG/LTT to SUCCEED. We want to see them produce quality content. But they can’t do that with accurate information right now, despite their public desire to provide that.

lloram239, 9 months ago

Journalists report on things

Yes and that’s called clickbait. GN is just wasting everybody’s time making big drama out of utter trivialities.

QHC, 9 months ago

Steve at GN also said clearly that they were going to create LMG/LTT as they would any other company after the "trust me bro" warranty situation. On top of being inappropriate and not at all how "real journalism" works, Linus can't pretend that the expectation was to handle this privately after that announcement.

NightOwl, 9 months ago

If you see the response to my comment that you responsed to you see that someone made a response along lines of what Gamers Nexus said near the end

I hope that people listened before they just jumped to the OMG drama wall comments

Found that funny, and does show why some of the comments are dismissive of the situation thinking it is just drama, and see it more as their favorite content creator being attacked than an assessment of the quality of reviews meant for consumers.

TimLovesTech, 9 months ago

That video I’m sure (if like the last - I’m not clicking it GN deserves no clicks) is just more drama video and nothing “journalistic” about it. It’s just another reaction style video to feed the algorithm and give him free hyped up drama views. The sooner we stop rewarding content like this, the sooner the Internet become a little less toxic and full of bot made videos.

jcrm, 9 months ago

It is absolutely not, and I recommend you actually watch things before speaking so confidently about them. LTT can't claim to be investing huge amounts into their testing while also cutting corners on testing because it costs too much. Not to mention their entire handling of the Billet issue being nearly criminal (I'd argue what they did was dangerously close to libel/slander) to start with, and straight up criminal after they auctioned off something that wasn't theirs.

None of that is "drama". LTT wants to be taken seriously as a media outlet and reviewer, and thus are held to those standards of reporting.

frogman, 9 months ago

not to come off overly negative- steve also does great work. i hope we hear from LMG soon <3

dragonfly4933, 9 months ago

They can do both, and if their stance is at all ideologically motivated, then it is necessary to focus on more than just the low hanging fruit of doing reviews.

The free software movement is more than just the free software existing. It is also congruent to the laws that permit it and extending rights

Right to repair is about more than simply fixing things. It’s about going after companies and lobbying to get actual rights enshrined into law.

GammaGames, 9 months ago

I felt the same and was wary to even watch this. Seems like something to discuss privately first. But it’s full of solid points, and I think the amount of public mistakes from LMG makes it a little easier to accept.

EvilColeslaw, 9 months ago

The last time something like this happened it was made clear GN was going to cover LMG as the corporation it is, not as an individual where you might hash things out privately first.

GammaGames, 9 months ago

Based, even if it makes high school me sad

Lumilias, 9 months ago

What frustrates me is that if you’re going in under the guise of journalistic integrity, why not ask for comment from LMG?

Steve made a lot of solid points, but if you never give them a chance to explain themselves, then it just looks like drama click bait. It’s turning me off to techtubers as a whole, both LMG and GN. The backbiting from GN is frustrating, and the maddening pace of faulty LMG videos is sad.

EvilColeslaw, 9 months ago

It’s true that would be the ideal way to go about this. However, I’m also weighing that vs Linus saying this should’ve been handled privately (which implies off the record).

ShadowRam, 9 months ago

because those are the videos that pop off.

Yeah, drama gets clicks,

But Steve did say at the beginning, that this video is unmonetized.

So I give him credit for taking that step.

dolphone, 9 months ago

this video is unmonetized.

Doesn’t mean it’s not a growth based move. Unmonetized means no ads right? And you still get the exposure.

QHC, 9 months ago

This is exactly why the first line in the description clarifies that the video was not monetized. Sure, GN still benefits from the exposure, but they are also going to get a ton of backlash from a much larger fan base they just "dunked" on.

TimLovesTech, 9 months ago

As soon as I saw who the video was by it’s a hard pass for me. This is drama for clicks, nothing more. Steve could do something worthwhile with his time instead of these silly reaction style videos for the YouTube algorithm. Like Linus stated, if he really had issues, and actually felt a concern about anything in the video he would have reached out. Not doing that makes this no better than the bot created trash for clicks IMHO.

kek_w_lol, 9 months ago

Wholeheartedly agree. Wverything else I can understand and maybe even excuse. But auctioning off a prototype that isn’t even yours is so far beyond the line. They have turned into another soulless corporation just like Google, Apple, Microsoft etc. And corporations should never be trusted.

GhostMagician, 9 months ago

He’s another tech bro. Wan show always seemed more like a soap box for him to try to make him seem like an aww shucks type of guy, but there was the whole discussing wages issue at LTT too that broke the illusion of the image he tries to depict of himself.

jcrm, 9 months ago

When I was still watching I remember he said if LMG ever tried to unionize he would take it as a personal failure. The intention of that statement may mean well, but it's a really not great view to have and profess. Unions can (and should) maintain a good relationship between the workers and management.

xusontha, 9 months ago

That seems like a pretty large jump just because of what they already said was a miscommunication and are taking steps to work on (though it shouldn’t have happened) I don’t really see what malicious motivations there could be behind auctioning it off cuz they aren’t that desperate for an amount of money that doesn’t really matter to them (see the size of the investments in things like the badminton center and the labs, also I think the money might’ve gone to charity) What you say about corporations is true, however I think you can grow to trust people in those corporations and yes, I don’t acutally know Linus but he’s shown that he usually tries to do the right thing so I don’t think he’s going to randomly flip into going against what he’s claimed are his morals for years. Also, there are most likely other people at LMG in leadership who, if Linus did become some sort of terrible person, would probably try and stop him, even if just for job security

lloram239, 9 months ago

But auctioning off a prototype that isn’t even yours is so far beyond the line.

What “line”? It’s a bit careless, but utterly irrelevant as far as their viewers are concerned. If anything, this just establishes that they don’t communicate with the manufacturers to have their reviews cross checked and validated, which is good thing when it comes to independent reviews. And yes, mistakes will be made, but you can bet that there will be plenty of users of that product that would have made the same mistakes, so again, actually not a bad thing. Also even the manufacturer didn’t know at this point that it wouldn’t work. Only argument here is really that they shouldn’t be testing prototype products, since that can always go wrong in both direction (e.g. substantial features getting remove for the final version after the review).

LMG leaving incorrect information in their video and only correcting them with an asterisch is really the biggest crime here, as those are intentional mistakes, not accidental oversights.

Either way, Gamer Nexus here feels extremely nitpicky here. Of all the things wrong in the advertainment tech space, this really is about the least important one. This is pure dramabait.