Blademaster91

Claiming Steve only made the video as a "hit piece" or that he "acts as if the'yre anointed by god" is complete nonsense.
The reasons are very obvious why Steve didn't want to have to make the video but it is well justified as he reported on things out in the open in videos, when someone can point out mistakes being made for a long time then the call out needs to be done.
If you don't like the style in how Steve does videos thats fine but attacking GN in order to defend Linus and LMG is wrong in my opinion.
All of the companies that Steve has called out for anti-consumer things were right of them to do, these companies are selling things to the consumer that are a fire hazard, or can ruin a CPU then deny warranty or even admit they did anything wrong.
I'd like to see more tech youtubers call out companies for bullshit, but many of them don't want to risk upsetting sponsors, or care more about the money as LMG clearly does, and more about the money than getting basic testing in a review right.
 
The thing with the PCI-e riser is that the paint could be easily scratched off by installing and  removing it just a few times, and the company admitted it was an issue and tried to fix it, before anyone buying it risked ruining their PC or worse setting their house on fire.
 
As for the PSU, those were also dangerous and should've been fully recalled by Newegg, Newegg as a company has also been going downhill with terrible support and allowing marketplace sellers to sell junk so buyers have to be careful when buying that an item comes from a reputable seller or directly from Newegg.
And as for the Asus motherboard issue, Asus chose to put that disclaimer in a BIOS when the BIOS was causing the motherboard to break the CPU, no other manufacturer was denying warranty even if others had the same problem.
Also for the whole Billet labs issue, that is on LMG, they sold it, then claimed it was fine because "at least it wasn't sitting on a shelf" then Linus said it wasn't sold it was auctioned, it being for charity also makes it worse as the charity is involved in the probelm.
 
And no the whole issue is on LMG to improve, GN only brought up the mistakes LMG has been for years now, GN tried to contact them with the "trust me bro" issue but Linus ignored them and took it personally instead something they need to resolve as a company. Steve decided to treat LMG like every other company he's done a video on after that and I think that is justified when Linus takes everything personally instead of admitting they made a mistake.

Linus is also the face of the company, and him lashing out and deflecting criticism that's raised at his company when the crisicism is warranted is bad. 
It doesn't matter whether he is a workaholic or feels responsible, he should not be responding like that when running a company. 
 
I respectfully disagree, the level of criticism was needed because Linus has a track record of also spinning his own story about it. 
Linus completely dug his heels in the sand and doubled down while he knew he was wrong and should have just taken the L and gracefully taken the valid criticism, had he done that the community would have applauded him as a hero and GN would have had no ammunition to create that second video.

Rather than focussing on GN their video we should focus on Linus and his systemic track record of not being able to see why what he thinks is wrong, I'd like to point towards the "trust me bro" incident where he was obviously wrong, called out for it and decided to double and triple down until the community backlash was so big he **HAD** to change his stance. 

And even then he still thought the community was wrong rather than his own views on warrantee. 
 
As I've stated above this quote, Linus 100% deserves that stance from GN and any other tech outlet because of his systemic track record of shifting the blame and deflecting responsibility. 

I love the guy as a personality, truly, but he needs to deal with his ego and start admitting when he is wrong. 
It's getting to the point where it can actually do damage to LMG as a whole. 

Linus his apology was mostly deflecting the key issues and taking valid criticism about the poor quality of LTT videos as personal. 
Did we read the same apology on the forums? 

Most of the comments on reddit and the forums said that they were going to take what Steve said with a grain of sand and wait for Linus or LMG's initial reaction to the criticism raised. All hell broke loose after Linus posted his initial thoughts on the forums and he started deflecting the issues and calling Steve out for not reaching out to him personally, which Steve was not entitled to do to begin with. 
 
The fact that they are taking a week-long break to restructure their processes and work on producing more quality content shows you that most of the issues that were addressed (and the admitted to in the apology video) were mostly baind-aid fixes. As egrerious errors were still being released on most of their videos with caveat edits post production. Even their apology video had errors like failing to blurr Colton's actual work e-mail which he is no doubt getting blasted with e-mails on now. 

The GN video was needed for LMG to improve their processes and realize the scope of the problem. 
It's not like LMG is a small company now, manufacturers take them seriously and as far as tech is concerned they are now amongst the industry giants when reporting on it, as such their content should be treated as such, especially when they have a labs department that should be releasing content that is tested properly and in-line with industry standards. So far it hasn't. 

I am 100% certain that if the video was not posted by Steve these issues would not be addressed at the scope they are currently being addressed at. 

The majority of your posts seem to point towards quite a big of LTT bias, while I am also a fan of /entertainment/ I would like the entertainment I am watching and they are showing to be factional and not filled with egregious amount of errors when compared to other outlets. This is especially the case when Linus himself says that the results of labs should be reflecting what the industry on a whole is seeing. 

In that context Steve his video made sense to publish.
And lets be fair, if this helps LMG as a whole improve their processes your entertainment will have more abundant quality which is a win/win in my opinion. 
 
There were no pitchforks to speak of until Linus came with his initial reaction which was to say the least from professional, the fallout happened shortly after that.
Even the e-mail they showed in the apology video shows how unprofessional Colton was with his remark that the cooler wasn't at least "sitting on a shelf collecting dust", it shows that they have no respect for small companies regardless whether there were communication errors about handling the cooler. 

I said it before and I said it again, they improperly tested the cooler even though Billit sent a 3090 with it that it fit with and was properly configured for. 
Any testing data or thermals that came out of that test were pointless to discuss or talk about, because the testing process behind it was non-existent. 

They pushed a startup under the bus, and while I'm sure Billit wasn't 100% transparant towards GN about the information it's not like they had a fair chance to showcase their product or deal with a company the size of LMG to begin with. 

There really is no benefit for GN to go after LMG, given that LMG tried to put a positive spin with their video, and then gaslit everyone into thinking GN lied about Billet not being paid for the water block they auctioned off.
I don't see anyone trying to tank LMG, they're going to be just fine, but I do question if the LTT fans are going to be toxic and attack GN for even bringing up the mistakes LMG have made.
He didn't monetize that video out of fairness, he didn't want there being any sponsors to make it look like there is any conflict of interest, yet people are still insisting GN had some sort of interest for pointing out obvious mistakes that needed to be called out on.
Also if you've seen GN's video he says why he didn't ask first, he didn't have to, and he's done other videos calling out companies on bullsh%^ and didn't ask them first.
What did GN deny though?
All of things he pointed out were out there as public info, that is exactly what being objective means.

This whole he should've reached out/real journalism thingy is the biggest cope that I've seen, lmao

Bro, Linus said he wouldn't spend $500 to retest something, if it wouldn't change the conclusion lol.
 
Even if the exact semantics about WHY it wasn't returned are slightly different, Steve's point about it being straight up incompetence / lack of care / lack of time for checking their work remains 100% accurate.

Here you go:
(timestamped to 6:34)
 
The reaching out is completely just complimentary even in more traditional media. Some newspapers and news channels may have very strict rules about reaching out for a comment but they are still just complimentary and a lot of the time when the news piece is bit "spicy" you will see "X was contacted for input but didn't provide answer" which basicly translates into "10 minutes before pressing publish we send them an email and they didn't answer".
And yes, that is done by even the most respected publications.
 
As Steve says:
He doesn't reach out every time, he doesn't need to reach out every time to corporations when reporting on them. Period. With big corporation he doesn't reach out if the issue already harms the consumers or if their view is irrelevant. Any product he buys and reviews, he doesn't reach out because they are already doing harm.
He didn't need Linus's input or permission to do that video. LMGs videos are already affecting millions of consumers and their objective errors, which he covered objectively (Me: like the case where Linus goes "you can throw anything at Noctua NH-D15 and it handles it" while the very next graph shows NH-D15 not handling everything thrown at it but a CPU thermal throttling) and Linus's response is to move the discussion over why he wasn't allowed to get input on the first video (Me: Because he would have done what he did, turn it into "oh, it's already handled and made right" while actually Coltons email got lost into their bureaucracy and the first thing Linus did before writing the response was to reach out to Billet by himself making sure that "the problem is being handled" and he doesn't lie saying "it's under control").
 
And still that is A LOT more than Linus has done even in the close past. Like with the Billet Labs where he right out denied his writer to make the test properly because it would have costed him money and it wouldn't have changed his stand about the product. That is way further away from objective reviewing with trustful and correct testing than not giving Linus "gas-molecule" Sebastian chance to respond in private and probably start to do damage control before all of his mistakes are thrown into the public.

Indeed, Linus knows some of his following is very toxic, he addresses this yet doesn't seem to tell them to stop, as Linus knows the toxic following will defend him no matter what when some controversy happens. The problem is something LMG created by making the chaotic content, or content aimed at a younger audience, with the constant innuendo jokes, or the ridiculously expensive PC builds, or things like the game controller made of gold.
The fanclubbing is very immature and I expect its mostly the younger audience, given the amount of new accounts coming in to come up with reasons to blame GN.  I usually like being on the forums because people are having other discussions, and I assume a lot of the people here posting regularly don't care about the LTT content. However a lot of the posts from people joining just to defend Linus because of a toxic para-social relationship makes the forum feel like reddit with all of the fighting and discussion going in a circle because someone wants to blame GN for not asking before making the video, even though GN has said why he didn't in his videos. 

Welcome to the LTT community during shitstorm when YT, Reddit and whatever other platforms find the forums and raid it.
 
It's really not a joke or meme but even Linus has mentioned the fact that as whole he has very toxic following (mostly probably from the "entertaining" videos where nothing seems to go as planned and it pretty much boils down to chaos, something that pleases 14 year old teenagers with ADHD and too much money to spend on energy drinks).
Like the word "toxic" isn't enough, oh boy, not even half of it and things would be pretty much okay if it was ONLY these times when Linus is under attack, as in community is mostly against Linus. But nope.
Like there's a moment in history after which no one should be proud to call themselves part of Linus-fanclub and it has nothing to do with Linus but everything to do with the energy drink fueled ADHD fanclub. The keyword is Mindchop.
 
These forums usually are active but kind of don't even care about LTT that much, some will point out some videos and WAN show but generally just talk about tech and troubleshooting and fighting over fruit product company or someone tryinf to do something somewhere.
But not when the brown stuff hits the fan and there seems to be more couple days old accounts sprouting than mushrooms in rain.

I'm pretty sure its way more than 13%. With an extremely nerdy and in-depth channel like GN, almost nobody finds them before finding Linus first.
 
Also again the answer is simple - hes talking to the tech community. This is no different than when he called out ASUS for their poor handling of the AM5 MotherBoards that melted Ryzen 7000 CPUs.
 
LMG is exactly the same as ASUS in Steves mind. Its the same song and dance as usual - so its the same community. If you can't believe or accept that then I suppose thats your own personal problem.
 
However, unfortunately for you... Thats the truth...

Ya, he made a direct hit on LMG because LMG is currently damaging the community.
 
He even expressed in the beginning of the very first video that he is uncomfortable with the situation and he really does not want to have to do this. You did watch it, didn't you?
 
Steve is a 100% factual and ethics guy first. You would understand that if you have watched him and his content for as long as I have. Ive been watching LMG, GN, and JaysTwoCents for over a decade. Hardware Unboxed is the newer channel for me. Steve and Linus are so completely opposite people that comparing them is like trying to divide by the number 0 and then the world implodes lol.
 
Steve really was excited for his bud Linus when Linus first announced labs. You should have seen that video he was genuinely stoked on the idea of the biggest tech tuber having access to real, genuine, accurate data.
 
And to you guys who believe LMG deserves an easier time because they are more Entertainment-focused? You couldn't be more wrong. Do any of you even remember the early days of LMG? Do you guys even remember the original reason the channel was founded? Its in the title guys - LINUS TECH TIPS - He has always wanted to provide useful consumer advice to his audience first and foremost. Otherwise it never would have existed to begin with.
 
Even if it is meant to be more entertaining than other options, 75%+ of this entire company is still reviewing tech products in different tech categories and telling consumers whether or not they should buy it.
 
And what has LMG been failing at lately? Oh, right - providing helpful consumer advice on tech products. Literally the main and fundamental idea behind LMG is what they have been doing wrong.
 
As for the Madison allegations - unfortunately none of us will ever know. Its a quite serious subject and information on the matter will only be shared with those who need to know. But you need to remember that many people make baseless allegations against big companies and celebrities all the time to try and get money of them.
 
How many women have come forward with sexual assault allegations against rock stars this year alone? You realize in 99% of those situations that woman wanted it and asked for it, and then turn arounds and claims sexual assault later. We aren't stupid, we know better.
 
Just like how gashing your own leg open to avoid going to work is completely bulls*** and anyone who believes that needs to go back to school immediately. Wanna know why its BS? Because there are other jobs in the world, nobody is forced to work anywhere. If you don't like where you work, try... IDK... MAYBE FIND A NEW JOB YOU MORON!
 
And then there was someone talking about Transgenders for some reason??? What? I mean diversity is important in any workplace but like what the hell does that have to do with inaccurate testing the whole billet labs thing? Also, diversity in this business? Ur joking right? This is nerd territory. Nerds are like literally 80% white bearded dudes. Theres nothing wrong with that - I am one too. You can't force diversity when others just aren't interested.
 
You know how many women Ive met in my lifetime who know a single thing about PC Hardware? One, literally one. There may be some and I may not be lucky but I actively seek out nerdy female friends and nerdy potential dates and literally find none whatsoever.
 
And thats fine, who cares? It doesn't make it bad. Its just we are the people who enjoy this subject (well the vast majority anyways) and that doesn't mean anything at all.

Time for Linus to get a reality check. His bad behavior has to be called out.
 
I find it funny that Linus having a hard time someone attacking him, for his life work, when he just made a huge insult to a small startup.

I agree, both need to provide accurate information, and I think its even more important for LMG to provide more accurate information because of the influence they have on the tech community.  LMG bringing up ethics as if they did nothing wrong and its somehow GN's fault seems disingenuous to me, and feels like they're punching down at GN and LMG as they're able to provide good data, Linus thinks he can just throw money at the issue of accurate information when money isn't the issue.  Also LMG trying to make themselves look good is probably to get fans to side with them as well, as people keep being hyper focused on GN not asking for contact even though they didn't have to, when GN hasn't done anything wrong here.
I find it ironic that GN needed to ask for contact, yet LMG had thrown shade at them twice and didn't ask for contact to discuss things first or even apologize for making those comments.
And if people are still mad at GN and think they did it for "drama" at this point there isn't any way to get them to understand the important part of the discussion which isn't whether or not GN asked first.

Steve and HU were called out specifically by the Labs guy, claiming they don't test properly.  Steve absolutely had to respond.  That's what started this entire mess in the first place. 
 
Yes, there was a half-hearted "he shouldn't have said that" by Linus during the following WAN show but the ball was already rolling.

Yeah I've seen a lot of people try to excuse LMG for the errors that occur regularly by saying they like LTT for entertainment, the errors and misinformation aren't excused by liking LTT for being entertained, even if someone is listening to LTT videos on another monitor they might miss corrections only posted in a pinned comment.
And I think thats an issue LMG have made for themselves, if someone can look at their videos and find a bunch of mistakes then they deserved to be called out for it.
Linus also made a comment on the WAN show calling out GN, which didn't help either. Instead of fueling the fire, Linus could've contacted GN Steve and HWUB Steve offering to do a discussion in a video, given how quickly they can make videos it should've happened.
Also IMO but the sort of non-apology video didn't resolve anything either with GN or HW Unboxed, especially with the jokes and sponsorships in the video.

???
 
GN had dealt with Artesian Builds (who quite literally tried to bribe Stephen with favours including taking him out to lunch in an attempt to control the narrative on the giveaway, and the company operations), and rejected their advances to keep things objective. Then we had the Newegg situation where the company tried to send an RMA'd motherboard to him and refused to process refunds + UFD Tech not getting proper compensation for the sponsored videos he did in 2020 for Newegg. In both cases, GN did not reach out to the parties (and specifically in Newegg's case, they reached out to him, going as far as to involve him in a meeting with other corporate members). So this idea that GN has to reach out to Linus still doesn't match up with how GN usually conducts his investigations.
 
You're just repeating the point without offering anything new. I had already addressed the point that there is no integrity if GN chooses to give all the leeway to LMG/LTT, especially when information already existed in the public domain anyway. You also refuse to address the fact that LMG/LTT being caught lying directly justified why Stephen was right to do what he did.
 
"Weaponing cancel culture" - Are you daft??? The Gamers Nexus video isn't about "canceling" LMG/LTT. They pointed out errors in their data and methodology, and went as far as to say that their hope is that LMG/LTT improves on this in light of their Data Labs implementation. Instead, you choose to ignore all of that and assume Stephen Burke must be attempting to eliminate LMG/LTT out of malice. By your logic, journalists covering misdeeds done by corporations or governments must be weaponizing cancel culture too. This is what happens when you use a buzzword and have no idea what it actually means.
 
You act like GN just made a video filled with ad homs, and nothing on clear, concise and logical points. Respecting the other person doesn't mean you allow them the opportunity to lie and gaslight (which LMG/LTT had already done, but as usual you choose you ignore that in favour of bashing what GN did). Pointing out errors that existed over multiple videos, and using information from LTT's own videos that conveyed employees weren't satisfied with quality of videos, is not "disrespect."

It's also plain and simple that LTT cut the video short, posted it with incorrect testing and while the writer asked Linus to give him a bit time to make the testing correct, Linus went "Shit product, shit price, I won't spend another dime or minute to it because nothing will change anything". And the outcome was lazy video which left the conclusion "product is shit because it doesn't perform well compared to its price" with the incorrect testing. Linus could have spend like 20 minutes extra and made the conclusion part of the video clearer about that the price of the product is ridiculous and pretty much no matter the performance, it's not a product he could give positive review, or spend the few hours/days and add the correct testing to strengthen the already filmed conclusion.
 
The problem isn't that the review was bad, the problem was that LTTs testing in that review was completely incorrect because Linus didn't want to initially spend 20 minutes to get RTX 3090 Ti (E: which Billet Lab also send to LTT) to test the product and, because his some odd vision about always making only the newest and shiniest builds, they went on with the RTX 4090 that the Billet Lab said just only "might work" which it didn't.
The outcome really doesn't matter but that LTT released video about someones product in which LTT fucks up the testing because Linus and the LTT correction is pretty much Linus saying sorry and spending 10 minutes talking about why doing the testing correctly wouldn't change the outcome. The cold hard fact is still that LTT willingly and knowingly posted a video with fucked up testing.
 
What it comes to error correcting the pinned comment and later editing videos isn't enough. 99% of the people do not return to rewatch videos in case "there was a problem" or anything and the misinformation and error will remain and grow. GN also might put notion on the videos with mistakes pointing people to the video with the correction but even if not, them making the correction video and that being either fixed video or video only concerning their mistake is million times better than what LTT does.

Yeah, and it was agreed by LTT, but they didn't send it after two months and ended up selling it. They admitted, so stop defending it.

Im going to say this one more time and then Im done repeating myself.
 
GN has TRIED to reach out to Linus several times regarding the inaccuracy and testing methodology issues several times over the past year or two. LMG blatantly ignored the attempts because they were critiques and didn't want to give GN the time of day.
 
GN eventually gave up on reaching out. Then they see companies and hardware unboxed getting ignored too and decided it was time that something was done about it.
 
Just because GN happens to be in the same game as LMG doesn't mean he did it for profits. He has been talking about LMG issues little by little in videos for like a year and a half now.
 
Basically what has happened is Steve has decided that things have gone too far and he needs to step in and make it public. I would have done exactly the same thing regardless of the friendship I had with said channel.
 
Have you guys forgotten all the times Steve has come to be on LTT and have fun with a wacky PC experiment?
 
Figure it out already. LMG was going to be called out sooner or later by someone big enough to have an impact. Who better but Steve to do so? This situation is entirely obvious and easy to understand, stop trying to make it complicated.

The feedback in this case would have been a fair review instead of Linus using the wrong GPU with the block then spreading potential misinformation saying block is crap and no one should buy it.
I don't get your point of Steve needing a machine shop, LTT didn't need to machine the block, they needed to test it on a 3090.  IMO having a machine shop doesn't mean much if you can't get basic testing principles correct.

A reviewer that has any ethics or integrity will honor the contract and send it back if thats a part of the contract. If LMG couldn't follow the directions to use it on a 3090, then they should have sent it back and taken down the review.
Also it wasn't about Billet labs wanting a positive review, they wanted a fair review and potential further reviews where LTT could've compared to other enthusiast water blocks. And it was the fact LMG had no plan to use the cooler, so Billet wanted it back to send it to another reviewer, except Linus had already said it was crap and potentially ruined a startup company.
 

A reviewer that has any ethics or integrity will honor the contract and send it back if thats a part of the contract. If LMG couldn't follow the directions to use it on a 3090, then they should have sent it back and taken down the review.
Also it wasn't about Billet labs wanting a positive review, they wanted a fair review and potential further reviews where LTT could've compared to other enthusiast water blocks. And it was the fact LMG had no plan to use the cooler, so Billet wanted it back to send it to another reviewer, except Linus had already said it was crap and potentially ruined a startup company.
 

You're basing your opinion of it being a bad product based on the opinion of someone that didn't test the product correctly,  and his career has clearly has been tarnished by years of pushing quantity over quality, not correcting errors and putting them in the video. Anyone that cares about reviews with accurate data isn't going to LTT which is why LMG are rushing to start a testing lab.
No one else has reviewed it because that was the best prototype Billet labs had, they had to make another one and they lost time and money because LTT auctioned it off instead of sending it back.
If they had sent a prototype with a contract, most companies sending review samples have some sort of contract for review. LMG/LTT didn't honor that contract as Billet labs said LTT could keep as long as they would use it in other videos, but they didn't and said it was crap.
Also Billet labs did send them a 3090 with the block, but for some reason LTT chose to put it on a 4090.

What specifically are you skeptical of? the errors shown and detailed are clearly facts, I'm not sure how you can argue with that.