Randogg

I have been following Apple pretty closely since the mid 90's. I have only ever had one Apple product die on me that I was the original owner of, and I have owned several of their products. I was an Apple fan before Steve Jobs came back when everyone thought they were going out of business. I have used Macs from the Macintosh SE to the G4 Mac Mini. I have also owned multiple iPhones, and iOS is my preferred mobile platform.
 
Having said all of that, what happened to LTT does not surprise me. Apple has always put rather onerous requirements on their authorized service centers. Apple hardware has always been somewhat specialized, hence the need for certification in the Apple world. Even Dell and HP which use some proprietary things in their systems (PSUs with non-standard pinouts among other things) are not as difficult to deal with as Apple's hardware. Apple wants it that way. 
 
In the late 90's when I was attending the University of Georgia I did some "under-the-table" work for a guy that was trying to get certified to repair Macs. I don't think there was a service center close by, but because he was not selling Macs he could not be authorized to repair them. Even without the certification he did a ton of work because he was so close to the University. He did not have a contract with the University or any departments, but he did do work for pretty much every department there. 
 
Apple has also always had very expensive replacement parts. I remember many times seeing replacement motherboards for Macs cost as much as the retail of a new Mac. This was happening all the way back in the mid-90's when it was normal to spend $2k for a mid-level system.
 
I have also followed what can colloquially be termed "The Mac Web" since the 90's. Sites like Mac OS Rumors, Accelerate Your Mac, Apple Insider, and Low End Mac have been around for many years and all fall into a category of sites that could be considered Apple Evangelists. They typically have content that is favorable to Apple (Lowendmac.com has turned into more of a community and info resource than news). However even I was surprised at how hard the Apple Insider and Mac OS Rumors articles were towards LTT. This is especially true as traditionally Apple has been no friend to the Mac Web.
 
The fact that Apple will not sell them replacement parts is just absurd.

The thing is that Apple is mega right now. Unless every consumer revolts, they're an extremely long way from coming down, especially so as long as demand for Apple products remain. 
 
Like I said, I don't hate Apple but I also don't overwhelmingly like them. However, if I want Apple to change for the better, the only way to do it is for customers to vote with their wallets. I hate throwing this term, but in the business world, money talks and so as long as their strategy pays off, they won't change. 
 
It is why EA and others do what they do now. It makes money and if people keep paying up the nose for it, there's no reason for them to change. 
 
I overwhelmingly disagree with those saying that Apple should crash and burn into ashes. Because I would much rather they run into an issue where they would be forced to rethink their strategy and improve as a company. 

That’s exactly what innovation is. An improvement on an existing idea or product.
 
This is why I cringe when people call Apple’s recent stuff “inventions”. An invention is something radically different and nothing we have totally seen before. An innovation is an improvement on an an existing idea or product.

Apple is not going to provide samples for someone like Linus in the same way they would for someone like iJustine. Apple is and always has been a bit of a propaganda machine. Now they are big enough and powerful enough that they can essentially ignore marketing to Youtubers in a way that a company like Asus or Gigabyte cannot.

Linus has often mentioned that the Canadian marketing departments are rough to deal with. There was even a joke in one of his videos about establishing a US office just over the border so that they could deal with the US marketing departments.

I generally agree that Apple can be onerous in some aspects of its repair... certainly prices.  LTT's issue is complex, but my beef is that it's trying to create a fuss over something that isn't exactly a secret (Apple is picky about repairs, shocker) and isn't going to affect the vast majority of Mac buyers.
 
And yes, MacRumors, AppleInsider and the like are certainly very much kinder to Apple than many outlets, but the irony is that those sites don't get Apple review units and, outside of AppleInsider, don't get event access (I'm not actually convinced that AI gets in with a media pass).  The company seems much more interested in news organizations based on their audience size than whether or not they'll say flattering things.  I've seen the Wall Street Journal slam Apple over products more than a few times.

Brownlee is generally regarded as the best-known tech YouTuber with over 6 million subscribers (for reference: iJustine has 4.7 million).  Morrison, meanwhile, has about 2.4 million.  Neither is particularly scathing toward Apple, but they can and will call it out over things they don't like.
 
And that's the thing: a lot of the people here assume LTT doesn't get review units or event invitations because it dares to be critical of Apple, but that's not really true.  Hell, I've seen major tech news outlets like Engadget and The Verge offer sharp criticism of Apple gadgets and still get access.  It's more that Apple tends to avoid outlets whose criticism frequently goes into tirades, or where it looks like they're trying to stir up drama.  Why would Apple bend over backwards to court a site whose Mac reviews frequently boil down to "but I'm a gamer, so I'd rather have a Windows PC?"  

Linus has often mentioned that the Canadian marketing departments are rough to deal with. There was even a joke in one of his videos about establishing a US office just over the border so that they could deal with the US marketing departments.

THIS!

There are multiple ways to assure continued care for you family.  As you said, one is not necessarily more correct than another.  I find it obvious from Floatplane that you have a different endgame than some of the other Techtubers.  The following is a conditional statement based on what little I know of the business models of Kyle, Paul, and Jay; if I was a Youtube personality, I would most likely be more like them with a small operation.  I have no desire to run an empire or be responsible for multiple people as the person where the buck stops.  I would be one that would look towards life insurance as a major option.

Linus has set up a company that obviously does things many of us enjoy, but can branch out into other things.  I wouldn't be surprised if his company is taking on projects other than what we see attributed to them through LTT.  It is pretty obvious that Linus is a savvy businessman who understands his business inside and out.  He hires the technical expertise needed to cover things he is not strong in.  He is a good example of growing a business.

It is also awesome that he is working to build something that can continue without him.  I have seen firsthand how not taking these sort of steps can be a nightmare if something happens to the key person.  A family friend's husband owned a very large plumbing company in the southeast US.  Unfortunately this man smoked cowboy killers at a rate of more than a pack a day for many years.  He went to sleep one night when he was in his late 40's and did not wake up.  His wife had always run the "business" side of things, but beyond that she did not have the knowledge necessary to continue.  Their son had recently come of age, and had been working with his father from a very young age.  Unfortunately he did not have the respect of the other men in the business.  The business failed very shortly after.  The insufficient pre-planning forced that family to sell many of their assets.  It was a bad situation.
 
Kudos to Linus for planning to keep the same thing from happening to his family.

I want to see this done with Opterons. 12 core used for $25~ per pair at 2.1GHz (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lot-of-2-AMD-Opteron-6172-12-Core-OS6172WKTC-EGO-2-10GHz-12M-Processor-CPU-G34-/151657673560?hash=item234f807358:g:x38AAOSwrklVN3Gy)