TheBeast2211

Yo guys take a look at how many people have joined and signed up to the forums just to comment on this specific thread. Look at how many of them were never interested in joining a forum but happily watched Linus and are now extremely disappointed with his actions.
 
If that doesn't tell you there is something seriously wrong going on here, then I don't know what does.
 
Holy s*** guys, wtf is happening right now...?

and has the most amount of shills to be on his side.

I love how LTT cannot do anything wrong... 
I mean, not like that cooler was sent with a GPU that would work with it... 

Time will tell if LTT changes in response to the criticism or if they will continue to sweep it under the rug like nothing happened.
 
I figure they do not want to draw anymore attention to the video than it has already been getting, so to not undermine their reliability and accuracy of past and future reviews.
 
Side note-I hope you all have a wonderful morning/day/night. It was a pleasure posting on here for the first time today. 😄

In this case the journalistic best practice you are talking about does not apply. That is reserved for situations where previously undisclosed or unreported information is being brought to light. Everything GN raised in their video is already in the public domain, and was put there by LMG themselves. There is no need for comment on something that has in effect already been commented on by the party in question.

Based on the Likes on GN's Video It seems that most people agree with him (rightfully so)
 

 
a 220k View video with 72k Likes is wild
 

 
A similar LMG video with around the same views has and incredibly low like count in comparison

I hope that LMG just sucks it up and fixes their mistakes here in any way that they can but right now they're in hot water and if they don't do anything or double down we the fans have to take up arms (protest by disliking or unsubbing from FP or something like that we should)

Honestly, this is so disappointing to hear after all these years of talking about credibility, transparency and confronting bad practices - even small ones - when you could find them on the WAN show etc.
 
You get angry one of your prototype backpacks was found in a thrift store, but suddenly Billet Labs has to "just take it" when you auction off their own block that they asked back, multiple times? How is that fair at all?
 
And financial compensation isn't a "get out of jail" free card btw - you of all people should know (since you develop actual real products like the backpack and screwdriver) that aside from the costs you have caused massive delays for this company since they have to create new ones. In the worst case scenario, if this block gets in the hands of another bigger company they can now beat Billet Labs to market and make Billet Labs go bankrupt.
 
You should know all this, since you talk about business risks all the time.
 
It also shows you haven't watched GamerNexus' actual video cause he mentions the block was auctioned, not sold, multiple times. I get you're a busy person, you have said so many times in the past on WAN show, but failing at even doing basic stuff like watching this video only proves his point that time pressure and mistakes are rampant everywhere in the LMG company. And that is because it starts from the top.
 
What I'm most disappointed by, is your admission that you won't address this next WAN show. You have adressed issues on WAN that were much more minor than this one in the past all because of "transparency".
You know well that a lot more people will see WAN show and WAN clips than read a forum thread - so this feels more like hiding. Like sweeping this all under the rug. If you haven't noticed, that's the opposite of transparency.
Not adressing this on WAN show makes 0 sense.
 
And lastly - your comment about "he should have just talked to you" - come on, be real for a second. You have made so many careless statements in the past, both on your main channel, shortcircuit and on WAN show that you haven't taken back without first communicating properly with the entity that you talk about (Billet Labs is only one of many exampes). Yet suddenly when GamerNexus creates a video about you without first communicating to you it's a big problem and you call his journalism into question (cause that's what you do by saying you were disappointed in how he handled this)?
 
To be clear here - I'm not a hater. I have been watching LinusTechTips basically daily since 2011 I think.
I have had a Floatplane sub to the channel, I have bought a screwdriver, a tech pouch, mouse mats and many other items from LTTStore (you can ask for my order IDs). I love what you guys are doing and I love the attention, care and detail you put in your products. You're the only company that I trust by placing a pre-order to actually deliver.
 
But, like you said with Eufy - even though I really like your products, I will stop buying from you and promoting you until you actually give a proper statement on WAN show or on another public place instead of this doubling down. You claim to stand for transparency, but you now show to only be transparent when the backlash is minor or it's got nothing to do with you. And until you actually stand for transparency, just like with Eufy's privacy claim, it's a no from me.

I think LMG has done awsome things for the tech review/information segment. I do agree they have gone a bit off the rails in the past few months, and thats probably due to growth. That's why a new CEO was recently named. 
 
But, the first shot was fired by the Labs Tour video. When the creators that were targeted in that video spoke up and were asking why that was said in that way, they were pretty much ignored... 
 
Journalistically, sure GamersNexus should have reached out to LMG for their input on the story they were going to publish in regards to LMG accuracy, becauseit was there accuracy that was questioned first. But, I understand why they were upset too. Maybe they decided to ghost LMG like LMG ghosted them with their gripes in regards to the comments that were made during the Lab Tour video.
 
There are a lot of ears on LMG, and there is no reason to talk down about creators doing a fantastic job with relatively much smaller resources then LMG. This is not typically LMG style.. I liked it when they would collaborate with smaller creators, not talk down about their content.

Linus will take this personally as time and time again shows; he does not take well to criticism. Look at his first response. It tells it all. 😬
 
The company needs to slow down, release less content that has way more quality. You can see this during the video of employee interviews.
 
LISTEN TO YOUR EMPLOYEES MAN! THEY ARE TELLING YOU HOW TO FIX THE PROBLEM

This is exactly me, sub to floatplane, have purchased stuff from the store (in Aus too, so not cheap) and have enjoyed watching since the start (not much for needing to comment and ramble on so havent had an account here).
 
The only issue I see is too many videos and not enough quality control, easily fixable but thats for the team to work out. I hardly watch many of the main videos anymore anyway, its just mostly silly stuff and not overly interesting. (interesting for me is the work on your house, building servers, getting in to cool home lab type stuff, making something, useful stuff). WAN is my weekly chill though, Sat morning (and now arvo lol) sit back and listen to the topics, less marketing would be nice, I am sure not everything you guys do needs to be filled with "Buy this, and this is new and buy this, etc", I know you have a store 🙂
 
Anyway, I am sure @LinusTech knows whats going on, a big thing to remember is none of us on the outside have any clue of what is actually going on, from what I have seen of Linus, I dont think he is a bad dude, there are probably just pressures that we can't understand, time will tell in the end.

I almost never visit the forums, but today's a special case.  And sorry, but I got a bit of run-up before my point.
 
My personal feelings on this (Can take this as venting, may want to skip):
 
While I feel GN's video is overly aggressive, possibly over-exaggerating, and using wording that feels less like a rebuke and more of an attack, that is their style when they feel there is something serious that needs to get done.  As a long term watcher of both channels, I can understand why GN took this particular approach. But I can understand Linus' points about direct communication as well. And while I agree with much that Steve has said, I don't agree with all of it. As far as on the LMG side, I am  feeling like fears I have about LMG's size and momentum causing significant problems are being validated, and I actually really hate that.
 
My take on the state of things (Just stating my viewpoint, so I can be corrected if needed):
 
LMG, usually Linus specifically, has made very large claims, and is trying to do some very large things to support them. GN has taken on themselves the role of watchdog for tech media, and is making noise befitting that role. (Whether too much or not that is up for interpretation from LMG, the community, and even GN themselves) It seems that LMG is starting to fall significantly short of what they have claimed, probably what they've promised. (Is there a difference?) And now GN has brought that to light. I don't believe the word unqualified should be used to refer to LMG, but I do agree that the problems are big enough that GN's choice to bring community pressure is justified.
 
What I want (Maybe what a few people want):
 
I doubt there hasn't been communication behind the scenes already on this, but yeah, that needs to happen between LMG and GN.  Though I know LMG is in the middle of reorganizing it's C-level, I imagine this is relevant to both the Vision and executive direction of LMG.  And that is a big thing, so while I am expecting LMG to put together a proper response, they are a bit bigger now, so maybe a bit of time for them to actually put together a plan, and then a response is more than reasonable.  As far as what I want for a response, it's well established that LMG is always pushing to improve on all fronts, but if they can share what they can about details of such plans, specifically addressing points brought up in the GN video, it would be more than just appreciated. And like, a video on it. A message that can't be missed, as well as that's possible considering how the platforms work.  Heck, if possible, work with GN to figure out where the line is to actually include in such a video some of the corrections that could use addressing directly. And GN prides itself on working with others to solve issues, so now that they've brought the shitstorm, I would like to see a significant effort on their part to assist, if LMG can manage to shift itself in a better direction. I doubt that real change will be quick in this case, so such collaboration prolly will take time as well.
 
I don't need LMG/Linus to reply to this. It's a very long ranty post all based on my opinion. But I've said alot here, and at least for the next while I'll be around as I can, if anyone has anything to say about it.
 
EDIT: Bolded headings, so easier to skip sections.

All the people trashing GN for not asking Linus for comment... have you watched the video? Linus's comments are in the video. You can hear Linus say himself that he doesn't want to spend a few hundred $ to properly test a product they reviewed.
 
Do you really want GN to ask Linus for a comment on Linus's comment? That seems redundant.
 
Linus has made statements on the WAN show about these issues, and GN is now publishing a piece on Linus's public statement and published videos. You do not need to ask for comment for a story about public statements that were made.
 
IPSO says:
 
But I agree it would've been better had they given Linus the opportunity to respond, but I don't think it is a big issue or takes anything away from the underlying problems outlined.
 
And as a side note, did LMG ask Pwnge for comment regarding the mouse before releasing the review/unboxing video? Did they ask Billet labs for comment before releasing the sloppy review? Not saying two wrongs make a right, but if anyone should be accused of not adhering to journalistic standards it's LTT...

Both channels strive for accuracy and risk their relationships for a correct review, this is one of the rarest and most important traits in the landscape. I can stand behind both of them.
 
If you run a small company with only a few of you, then GN's way is perfectly viable: quality over everything else, and you only buy new toys when there's money for it. It's stable, but there's no way to do everything you want to do. Not even remotely close.
 
LMG is one of the largest YT operations by a long shot, and he has to provide to all these people. Allocating more time for videos is a double loss in this case: you have to pay more for it, so you will have less views, less revenue from said views, sponsors, reach... This loss of income can and do hurt jobs. Just look at what happens at similarly sized companies when a minor project is canceled. Entire groups are fired. This company is not large enough that the CEO can take a smaller loss from his salary to keep said employees on the long term. That feature comes at 1000 people which is not yet possible in this landscape.
 
You have to understand both sides. These creators act from the kindness of their hearts and not from greed. This is just an expected side effect of running a factory. Manufactories have way lower scrap rates than factories. Yes, it's true that the QMS is just better at GN, but Linus has a way wider portfolio. You just can't have the best of both worlds, that doesn't work. I won't believe that major changes will happen. Yes, the lab will do more comparable results, and the employees will be trained for more appropriate communications, but that's all they can do. And because we need both a quality and a quantity channel, it's good this way. Keep up with the good work, both of you!

I would go so far to say this was the friendliest way to approach this, is great to have friends that tells you "Everything is going swell, maybe juuust do this and that, but otherwise great", but your best friend will undoubtedly go ahead and slap your face and say "this shit is completely wrong", something that in a recent LMG Clip was mentioned, where Linus was asked about what was the favorite thing about Luke on WAN Show

Long time viewer of LTT and obviously here to chip in my 2 cents on the issue. What I'd hope is that someone is going to go through this thread and see what the community's concerns are seriously, and I'd like to think my opinion was valued like the others who watch LTT.

POINTS IN FAVOUR OF LTT.
1. I personally don't have an issue with the whole Trust Me Bro thing. LTT has a long standing reputation for stellar aftersales service. Hell, anyone having any issues could have just linked in that episode of WAN and it'd be hard for any customer service agent to argue against their own CEO saying approve the replacement.

2. The whole Framework dig is weird to me. Linus bought shares in a company, honestly and openly declares it, and reviews their products objectively. It's all above board and I don't think it shows bias. Do people have issues when Dragons in the TV Show Dragons' Den offer their contacts and marketing teams alongside their investments, because that is far more 'shady' than this? 

3. Minor mistakes, goofs etc have always been a trademark of LTT. Honestly I think sometimes they're considered a part of the 'flavour' of the channel and where they could be cut, they were considered minor hiccups which can have a comedy asterisk.

4. I don't think any of this was deliberately shady practice. By the looks of it the whole Billet thing appears to be an accident where they forgot to return it, then someone else discovered it and thought it'd be good for the auction, although this doesn't make it acceptable. Making mistakes in a review which might not be edited by someone who knows that a 5800X3D has so many mb of cache is obviously wrong isn't the end of the world. 

POINTS AGAINST LTT:
1. LTT runs on a 'we push, or we die' principle. I cannot deny that GN has absolutely nailed that LTT is pushing content as fast as it can and the production line can't stop. I have already noticed occasions where even the host AS THE SHOOT IS ROLLING is aware that things are wrong, but they press on regardless, and I end up thinking at the end of the video 'why didn't you guys just whole-ass this and get it right before putting it out?'

2. I do feel that LMG is too big to reliably say that the whole company is aligned with Linus' view, or has Linus' knowledge. You have editing teams who aren't all necessarily experts on graphics card architecture, logistics personnel who aren't necessarily aware of the chaos a misplaced prototype can cause, and generally speaking there's no way that Linus can go around every single area of the company and ensure everything is as it should be, like he was able to do when there were only 10, 20, 30 people. When you have a big company like that, you can get these instances where you have a customer service rep that turns down genuine returns, a staffer who forgets to send a sample back, someone who makes a dodgy comment about a competitor, and all these things are relatively minor but can blow up into massive drama bombs. To be clear, these things are inevitable with a company this big, but the answer to that is LMG is now a company. It's not a bunch of guys that are all super duper into computer and therefore what one person at that company sees or believes, even if it is the CEO/CVO, is not necessarily representative of that entire company, and to claim otherwise is somewhat false.

3. The car reviews. The GR Corolla review posted recently just made me puzzled. The talk about the drivetrain being fully locked in 50/50 mode and this is the most tailhappy mode was completely factually incorrect, the focus on the stereo and lack of armrest was just weird when 90% of the car's owners are not going to care about that, and don't get me started on the driving and lack of safety precautions. It reminds me of when the BBC tried to relaunch Top Gear with comedians who knew nothing about cars (Harris excepted, although he was forced to play a dumbed down character) and then wondered why nobody cared what they had to say and they kept crashing. Couple this with reviewing 600+bhp, 2 tonne super EVs and somewhat questionable driving talent, there is going to be an accident at some point, and for what? Producing what are frankly car reviews for people who don't care about cars.

4. The worry here is that we are heading towards the Labs era, where hardware reviews will be posted with tonnes of benchmarks from a huge range of games. But what use will that be if the data is full of bugs? If LTT is already struggling to produce ACCURATE data from the amount of benchmarks being run now, it's going to be orders of magnitudes worse when a full suite of automated tests gets going on the RTX 5090.

5. The response to this has already been to say that there is no response. It didn't work for Trust Me Bro, and it's not going to work here either. These are very real concerns that have been raised and they are not going to go away. If anything this thread is revealing that people are getting worn out with the LTT push of content for the sake of content, without actually being able to trust that content because it's just plain wrong half the time. What needs to happen is Terran puts Linus on mute, orders a sit down of the company and makes it clear that accuracy comes first and not profit, and tell the community that loudly and proudly. That ultimately has to happen if the community is going to trust LMG going forward, otherwise there's just this frankly damning video of LMG making mistakes and (inadvertently) screwing a startup, and crickets from the culprits. Linus coming on here and going 'yeah it's okay we're making a few mistakes but it's gonna be better' isn't good enough, and this is actually the point where Terran actually does the job Linus hired him to do - be Linus's boss.

6. Complaining that Steve didn't get in touch first... I get it, you considered Steve as your friend, and I do hope you put aside your differences and work together on this, but he's not exactly hidden the fact that LMG gets treated like a company now. Much like the companies in Secret Shopper get to find out how they did when the video goes up.

7. Y'all are reviewing cars but don't have proper sims in your benchmarks like DCS World? F1 22 is something at least but not really a sim. I mean that's kinda personal but still lol. Baffles me how you claim to be a serious tech/PC/gaming reviewer but then get something like a Moza R12, plug it in for 5 minutes without mounting anything properly, say haha wheel go brr and that's it.

Guys, you can be better, and at least you admit that. But you need to properly own it if people are going to believe you are seriously committed to improving from what is a quite bad place right now. At the moment I pretty much just watch the WAN show and that's mainly in the background so I can get a general gist of the news and the 'Luke take'.

I am seriously concerned that the genuine issues outlined here and repeated by genuine members of the LMG community as concerns that have been growing before the posting of this video will be passed off as a 'bandwagon torch mob' sent by GN and therefore are not to be taken seriously.

I don't think you'll see this message but in the odd chance that you do....
 
I work in the corporate world. It blows. Despite the last few years of booming successes and changes with LMG, one aspect I've enjoyed most while watching your content above the usual videos I find myself viewing for work purposes is the vibe and feel. While I understand you are a massive company now (despite headcount), the videos never felt corporate. The vibe never felt overly curated or influenced by bottom lines, even if at the end of the day we all know it had to be. 
 
This response is exactly the kind of response I'd expect my CEO/President to make in this situation and for me, personally - just makes this whole situation suck that much more. This doesn't feel like the LTT from yesteryear, this feels like my workplace issuing a response because something negative gained enough traction to warrant it and we need to do some quick damage control before pretending like it never happened. 
 
It isn't a good response, Linus. I wish you would've slept on this one and then rallied the team tomorrow to have a serious internal discussion before posting a quick response on your forums. The fact that you auctioned the cooler instead of selling it is absolutely irrelevant. You still got rid of it against Billet's request and wishes and put them in a really crappy position. They don't have the equity and sway that LMG has. They cannot afford to go toe to toe with you guys over a prototype they sent out and they likely feared that doing so would result in millions of LTT fans (their potential customer base) immediately pitchforking them. You must understand the crappy situation you created for them and how incredibly unprofessional and silly it is to suggest that auctioning their prototype off instead of outright selling it is utterly beside the point. You recently voiced frustrations over a prototype LTT backpack and yet you seem to not understand why Billet may feel the same way. The main difference is your backpack isn't going to make or break the company. Billet, on the other hand, does not have a plethora of other content or products to fall back on. They also don't have their prototype.
 
You can be upset about the way Steve delivered his message but that doesn't mean you should entirely negate the message and the points he brought forth. As the leader of your team, CEO title or not, this is when you should be getting out in front of this and doing what you can to fix things and build confidence that they will actually be addressed. Your response seems to indicate that you don't believe anything is actually wrong and Steve's video was unwarranted. You also took offense to viewers being upset after watching the GN video. Then you ended with what I can only assume is an attempt to play on emotions with "Today sucks." So it was deny, deflect, and pity. These are, again, what you'd expect to see in the corporate world. 
 
I posted a while back and while I doubt you're even reading this message, I doubly doubt you'll take the time to go back to read my previous post in this topic as well. So to summarize: I really believe the best thing for everybody here is to not attack Steve or his methodology but rather address the points, admit fault where there is fault, and then more importantly - show what is going to be done to resolve and prevent. Your team is overworked and you're valuing quantity over quality - you've all alluded to this on camera. This constant rush for numbers has caused quality to drop and mistakes to be made. Slow down. Give your team some room to breathe and be proud of the content they publish instead of feeling like they're rush-studying for an exam the night before. Most of all - use your unique platform for some positive change and please fix the Billet situation. Cutting them a check is one thing but dragging them and then giving away their prototype should warrant more than a "ok fine, here's a check" response.
 
Lastly, don't gloss over the inaccuracies and mistakes in your videos. The tech community is a community of min-maxing stat nerds, so the numbers DO matter to us. I don't want to have to watch LTT videos knowing the numbers may be wrong. I'm watching your breakdown videos because I am expecting that a company of your caliber will show me accurate information so I can make a more informed purchase or decision. One of your biggest projects right now is finding objective ways to test products. You should be nailing the basics first so we can trust the more in-depth results later on.
 
Wish you all the best and I, respectfully, hope you reconsider this initial response. 

I have been here for a very long time… since before the beginning. @LinusTechtought me how to overclock my i7 920 back in 2009 and I have watched almost every video on the main channel since, and have an OG FP subscription simply to fund a project(s) I admire and appreciate - I want more, and better validated testing. So I pay for a sub I don’t even use simply as a way to show support…. And I demand better. 
 
I definitely don’t agree with everything, but overall, I agree with most things the LMG presents, and I can appreciate when mistakes are made as them trying to do the best they can given the situation they are in. 
 
That said… I demand better. And I am sure much of the community does as well. There is going to be reasons behind some of these issues the general public won’t see or understand, be it new team members learning, processes being tweaked and overlooked, NDA scramble, etc etc, but Steve points out some very valid choices that have been made that are clearly poor ones. If LMG wants to brand itself as a data driven company with high regard for accuracy, they must do better. 
 
Also, if that water block should have been returned, maybe this was addressed previously in the pages of comments, but that I assume is an extreme communication breakdown internally, and that needs to be addressed publicly. 
 
I look forward to an informative WAN show 🙂  

Because there are 30 pages on the LTT forum discussing a video with over 600k views regarding LTT business' practices and ethics?

While I agree that he could have done that, and probably should have done that, this is a really shitty comment to make. I would have liked to see Steve reach out for comment too, but do you guys always reach out for statements from the companies whose controversies you talk about on WAN? I know you do some of the time but how often do you just talk about it and move on without ever reaching out?

If you had instead phrased this like this I wouldn't have a problem:
"Here is the information that Steve was lacking in his video... We respect that he made this video and we are trying to improve our processes blah blah. If you ever need additional information on this or anything in the future feel free to reach out"

Instead you chose to throw him under the bus and tell the community essentially "He covered this wrong how dare he" which doesn't resolve anything and looks really bad in the process. Unless you have any evidence as to why people shouldn't trust Steve, I am disappointed that you choose to talk down on another creator as a response to their fair negative coverage of you.

You're putting out content that some people are going to use for large purchases. If your reviews are inaccurate, then they have much less value.
 
You need to be thorough and accurate, especially in benchmarks.
 
When errors are found, there needs to be an injection of voiceover during post.
 
All that energy, and money, you're pumping into the labs project is going to be for naught if your accuracy isn't there.
 
Start slowing down on the content, and do more checking. Steve raised a lot of valid points, I think you should look internally at processes to improve everything.

Calling people delusional is just going to reinforce their belief that this is a hit piece and not something borne out of genuine concern for the community.
 
That said, there's definitely a lot of takes in here where people are acting personally attacked and that's a little out of touch.
 
The video is good natured. The message isn't an attack, it's a concern. And after trust me bro, Steve said point blank he was no longer treating ltt as an individual but the corporation that it is.
 
Corporations don't care about your feelings. Corporations aren't people. Corporations don't get handled with kid gloves.
 
They get publicly discussed, and allowed to make their own decision on how to respond to that discussion.

First of all, the whole Billet Labs stuff is completely absurd if true. I don't think they would intentionally sell something they couldn't, probably some massive fuck up in communications happened between the team responsible for sending it back and the people choosing the items to be auctioned, but it's still a huge issue and 100% LTT's responsibility to fix it and make sure something like this never ever happens again. 
 
About the rushed content, it's something that a lot of times crosses the border of "fun jank" to being just frustrating. Every single project they do seems to be rushed, unfinished, untested and plagued with issues and oversights. And that could be their content "brand", seems like many people enjoy the jank. But if they now want to present themselves as serious testers, someone the community can look up for reliable data with Labs, that mindset needs to change, FAST. How the hell can I trust someone who has to correct themselves almost every video? And makes errors that a basic review of the content could catch? 
 
You need to pump out 7 videos a week? Sure buddy, but maybe allow more time sensitive projects to be properly planned, executed and reviewed and throw some "here's 10 fun crap we found on aliexpress" videos to make up for it.

But the organisation doesn't - so when a laptop is reviewed on Short Circuit by Alex for example, (even though its not meant to be a review, a whole other issue), he doesn't disclose the owner of LMG has an investment that causes a conflict of interest. Personally I don't find the Framework investment to be much of an issue, but it is without question still a conflict of interest. It's just a fact

But the organisation doesn't - so when a laptop is reviewed on Short Circuit by Alex for example, (even though its not meant to be a review, a whole other issue), he doesn't disclose the owner of LMG has an investment that causes a conflict of interest. Personally I don't find the Framework investment to be much of an issue, but it is without question still a conflict of interest. It's just a fact

Really can't believe what they did with with that water block, not only did they not test it properly, they apparently never followed their instructions, used the wrong hardware, never sent it back as requested as it was their best prototype and then auctioned it off!. This was a small startup and if it hasn't already it could kill that company.

And now that prototype is out in the wild that device could end up being copied and really kill the company. What in the hell where they thinking by auctioning it off in the first place as its a borrowed prototype, they don't own it.