What happened to the "No Clickbait" promise?

[Sauron]

On 1/14/2020 at 11:25 PM, CircleTech said:

LMG isn't lying in their titles.

While that's generally true, the "faster internet" one was really close to being a lie - at best it's misleading phrasing.

[Ein0r]

Clickbait titles make consumers unwilling to watch the videos at some point. Clickbait titles generate an expectation that is above the expectation thata normal title would generate. And if you promise the latest, greatest most fascinatingest regularly but you don't deliver, in relation to the expectations you set, people tend to leave.

 

• A hypothetical headline:  Did LG just create the best alround gaming monitor for the next decade?
• Content: LG created a monitor with an isp panel without any backlight bleed.
• Viewer: Is aware that the title is clickbaity, or at least hyperbole.

The viewer would normally expect a video about a really good monitor. But because of the title, he now expects at least a really really good monitor, maybe even a really really really good monitor. Even if it is just subconsciously. And even if he is aware of the clickbaity nature of the title.

 

But what the viewer gets is a video about a decent 1440p  IPS monitor without backlight bleed. But with terrible I/O and below average setting options. But it only costs $250.

And while this would definitely be a very good monitor for gamers on a budget, it is not what was promised in the title. It wasn't completely wrong, it just wasn't right either. Just because a statement has a shred of truth, elevating this little piece of truth to be the main focus point is bad manners at best, or misleading at worst.

 

Repeat this often enough and people grow tired.

 

[LAwLz]

On 1/18/2020 at 1:32 AM, Sauron said:

While that's generally true, the "faster internet" one was really close to being a lie - at best it's misleading phrasing.

And once you have to justify shitty actions with "yeah it's close to being a lie and it's misleading, but technically it is kind of true depending on how you define things" you've lost respect in my eyes.

Remember, LTT is a business. It's not a charity, it's not a friend, it's a company. They do not deserve special treatment compared to any other business. We should not tolerate a business being shitty against us consumers regardless of which business it is. "It makes them more money", why the fuck does we viewers care about that? I see people even going out of their way to give LTT more money, for example subbing to Floatplane but still watching on Youtube because they want Linus to get the extra ad revenue. For fucked up isn't that?

 

That's why it's so frustrating to read threads like these. Because they end up full of people who admit that what Linus does is shitty, but for some reason they defend it anyway. If you like Linus' content then you should strive for them to improve, which includes calling them out when they do bad stuff.

[Bombastinator]

6 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

And once you have to justify shitty actions with "yeah it's close to being a lie and it's misleading, but technically it is kind of true depending on how you define things" you've lost respect in my eyes.

Remember, LTT is a business. It's not a charity, it's not a friend, it's a company. They do not deserve special treatment compared to any other business. We should not tolerate a business being shitty against us consumers regardless of which business it is. "It makes them more money", why the fuck does we viewers care about that? I see people even going out of their way to give LTT more money, for example subbing to Floatplane but still watching on Youtube because they want Linus to get the extra ad revenue. For fucked up isn't that?

 

That's why it's so frustrating to read threads like these. Because they end up full of people who admit that what Linus does is shitty, but for some reason they defend it anyway. If you like Linus' content then you should strive for them to improve, which includes calling them out when they do bad stuff.

There used to be an old saying or two and some fairly out of date jokes about a headline on anything being basically total BS.  I think we are reaching that point again.

[Sauron]

3 hours ago, LAwLz said:

And once you have to justify shitty actions with "yeah it's close to being a lie and it's misleading, but technically it is kind of true depending on how you define things" you've lost respect in my eyes.

Remember, LTT is a business. It's not a charity, it's not a friend, it's a company. They do not deserve special treatment compared to any other business. We should not tolerate a business being shitty against us consumers regardless of which business it is. "It makes them more money", why the fuck does we viewers care about that? I see people even going out of their way to give LTT more money, for example subbing to Floatplane but still watching on Youtube because they want Linus to get the extra ad revenue. For fucked up isn't that?

 

That's why it's so frustrating to read threads like these. Because they end up full of people who admit that what Linus does is shitty, but for some reason they defend it anyway. If you like Linus' content then you should strive for them to improve, which includes calling them out when they do bad stuff.

I feel like there's something to be said about a system where businesses are almost required to behave dishonestly to have a shot at being successful... "there is no moral consumption under..." oh damn, forgot the word.

 

though in this case specifically I find it hard to consider a misleading title (or even an outright lie in the title) as particularly harmful to their audience. It's annoying, for sure, but maybe not particularly immoral given the circumstances - at worst it's a waste of 1 minute to watch the beginning of the video and figure out it's not actually about what the title says. If they intentionally lied in the video I'd find that a lot more egregious.

 

As for giving them more money by watching ads and subbing to floatplane I think that's a little misguided, not so much because they're getting them more revenue (not much wrong with that if you really like their content to be honest) but rather because the ad revenue for one person is infinitely lower than a floatplane subscription, not to mention a lot of it goes to youtube anyway and you have to sit through ads (arguably the worst of drawbacks). I'm not really sold on floatplane as a concept but... it's kind of the same as patreon or other crowdfunding methods.

 

I guess you could argue that LTT is abusing the parasocial relationship they have with their audience... though to be honest I think they've been pretty good about framing it correctly; they haven't really been pushing the idea that they desperately need their audience's direct financial support to stay afloat. Beyond a certain point it's unavoidable people will become irrationally invested in LMG as their personal friends.

[startrekdude]

3 hours ago, LAwLz said:

And once you have to justify shitty actions with "yeah it's close to being a lie and it's misleading, but technically it is kind of true depending on how you define things" you've lost respect in my eyes.

Remember, LTT is a business. It's not a charity, it's not a friend, it's a company. They do not deserve special treatment compared to any other business. We should not tolerate a business being shitty against us consumers regardless of which business it is. "It makes them more money", why the fuck does we viewers care about that? I see people even going out of their way to give LTT more money, for example subbing to Floatplane but still watching on Youtube because they want Linus to get the extra ad revenue. For fucked up isn't that?

 

That's why it's so frustrating to read threads like these. Because they end up full of people who admit that what Linus does is shitty, but for some reason they defend it anyway. If you like Linus' content then you should strive for them to improve, which includes calling them out when they do bad stuff.

Im a floatplane sub and I will still watch a few videos on YouTube if I see them first. I don't like click bait in general but i am one one of the ones that for the most part is not bothered by most of the video titles. Sure it would be nice if this was not the reality but I am not going to begrudge content I enjoy, when at the end of the day they are a business and they exist to make money. As long as more people will watch click bait titles it is something we will have to live with. The one thing I will say directly in defense of the titles for LTT, wile structured in a click bait way they are not for the most part that bad. Wile this does not hold true for all of them, most are answered to my satisfaction. Case and point the recent video "Should you buy a $50 CPU??" the video is true to the tittle they test a $50 cpu and see how it compares. 

 

TLDR Click bait is a problem, but LTT titles general aren't that bad in my book.

[LAwLz]

5 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

There used to be an old saying or two and some fairly out of date jokes about a headline on anything being basically total BS.  I think we are reaching that point again.

Maybe you're referring to Betteridge's law of headlines?

 

Quote

Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no

-Ian Betteridge, technology journalist

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

I feel like there's something to be said about a system where businesses are almost required to behave dishonestly to have a shot at being successful... "there is no moral consumption under..." oh damn, forgot the word.

Luckily for us, Youtube is not one of those systems!

Don't believe me? Look at all the channels which are big but doesn't use CrAzY headlines, like MKBHD.

 

 

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

though in this case specifically I find it hard to consider a misleading title (or even an outright lie in the title) as particularly harmful to their audience. It's annoying, for sure, but maybe not particularly immoral given the circumstances - at worst it's a waste of 1 minute to watch the beginning of the video and figure out it's not actually about what the title says. If they intentionally lied in the video I'd find that a lot more egregious.

I view the thumbnail and title as part of the video, so dishonestly in that is to me equal to being dishonest in the video content itself (which LTT is all the time).

But I guess some people like you view them as separate things even though I don't understand why.

 

 

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

As for giving them more money by watching ads and subbing to floatplane I think that's a little misguided, not so much because they're getting them more revenue (not much wrong with that if you really like their content to be honest) but rather because the ad revenue for one person is infinitely lower than a floatplane subscription, not to mention a lot of it goes to youtube anyway and you have to sit through ads (arguably the worst of drawbacks). I'm not really sold on floatplane as a concept but... it's kind of the same as patreon or other crowdfunding methods.

The reason why I brought that up is because I find that sort of behavior all over this forum and it's really weird and kind of sad to see. I view LTT as I view any other business, so when I see people wanting to increase the profits for LTT at the expense of their (the viewer's) own time, or money, or effort it's weird. Imagine if we saw people on this forum going "how can I donate money to Samsung?" "How do I make sure Apple gets a highest possible profit margin from my purchase?".

I get that people want to use Floatplane if they want to get higher quality videos, or the other benefits. What I don't get are the people who go out of their way to increase the revenue for LTT/Floatplane.

 

 

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

I guess you could argue that LTT is abusing the parasocial relationship they have with their audience... though to be honest I think they've been pretty good about framing it correctly; they haven't really been pushing the idea that they desperately need their audience's direct financial support to stay afloat. Beyond a certain point it's unavoidable people will become irrationally invested in LMG as their personal friends.

That's exactly what I am arguing, and I find it disgusting. Especially since a large portion of their audience are very impressionable little kids.

And before anyone says anything, yes I feel exactly the same way about for example Logan Paul which does the same thing towards his audience.

 

 

1 hour ago, startrekdude said:

Im a floatplane sub and I will still watch a few videos on YouTube if I see them first.

And that's fine. However in a fairly recent WAN show someone sent a super chat and asked Linus if they, as a floatplane subscriber, should click on the videos on Youtube too to increase the likelihood of LTT's videos ending up on trending, or something along those lines.

[lewdicrous]

You could argue that they're using this sort of titles/thumbnails to increase their views (however effective that may be is clearly evident by their views/video, and honestly it's not that great for their number of subs), but all those excuses are thrown out the window once you realize that they use the same titles/thumbnails on Floatplane. Either they're lazy or they're dishonest, choose whichever you want to believe. 

[Bombastinator]

I like it but I was thinking older.  I’m attempting to sift through aphorisms my grandfather used.  It’s been a long time and he died when I was a child.  He was born prior to 1900 which was the last time the problem was this bad.  They all applied solely to newspaper headlines of course.  My memory is They tended to be anti proverbs for proverbs no longer used.  There was one about kewpie dolls I think which of course has no modern attachment.  Part of the problem is I never knew what the original proverb actually was having heard only his version of it.

 

Twain once said “If you don’t read the newspaper you’re uninformed, if you do you’re misinformed”.  It wasn’t  one my grandfather used but has its place.  His were more about headline quality.

[Sauron]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

Luckily for us, Youtube is not one of those systems!

Don't believe me? Look at all the channels which are big but doesn't use CrAzY headlines, like MKBHD

Honestly MKBHD's titles are about the same quality as LTT's, aside from exceptions (like the "faster internet" video) they tell you fairly accurately what the video is about with some sensationalist addition...

 

 

are these really that different to you? Same goes for the thumbnails - if I couldn't see Marques' face in the background in the iPhone thumbnail I could easily have mistaken all of these for LTT videos.

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

The reason why I brought that up is because I find that sort of behavior all over this forum and it's really weird and kind of sad to see. I view LTT as I view any other business, so when I see people wanting to increase the profits for LTT at the expense of their (the viewer's) own time, or money, or effort it's weird. Imagine if we saw people on this forum going "how can I donate money to Samsung?" "How do I make sure Apple gets a highest possible profit margin from my purchase?".

I'd say it's a little bit different when the business in question is a megacorporation that produces and sells physical goods as their main business model. Of course LMG is still a business but donations are clearly much more impactful in their case - and they've shown that they're willing to invest any extra money in expanding their team rather than just hoarding it. Again, I don't really see a problem in that outside of the broader systemic issues that aren't really the fault of LMG.

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

That's exactly what I am arguing, and I find it disgusting. Especially since a large portion of their audience are very impressionable little kids.

And before anyone says anything, yes I feel exactly the same way about for example Logan Paul which does the same thing towards his audience.

I wouldn't say LTT is nearly as bad as Logan Paul in any way. As I said, they're generally pretty responsible when they push their merchandising and they rarely even mention floatplane since they don't consider it a finished service. Other than that, some of it is unavoidable because of the medium itself - as I said, kids will get attached either way and the only way to avoid any influence in this sense would be to simply stop selling merchandise and floatplane subscriptions. Since neither of those are particularly egregious businesses I don't really think it's fair to demand they shut them down.

 

[LAwLz]

3 hours ago, Sauron said:

are these really that different to you? Same goes for the thumbnails - if I couldn't see Marques' face in the background in the iPhone thumbnail I could easily have mistaken all of these for LTT videos.

Yes they are very different because:

1) You're cherry picking.

2) Yes they are different, because MKBHD's videos actually has information in the title and thumbnail, while LTT's titles and thumbnails try and entice people into watching them by only providing a small amount of info.

Notice how MKBHD's videos has the product name in the title, and doesn't have a question in the title nearly as often as LTT has.

 

 

 

3 hours ago, Sauron said:

I'd say it's a little bit different when the business in question is a megacorporation that produces and sells physical goods as their main business model. Of course LMG is still a business but donations are clearly much more impactful in their case - and they've shown that they're willing to invest any extra money in expanding their team rather than just hoarding it. Again, I don't really see a problem in that outside of the broader systemic issues that aren't really the fault of LMG.

Shouldn't matter if a company is large or small. It's a company, not a charity.

Also, the money people are donating are going to luxury cars for their employees among other things. LTT makes a ton of money, and their audience are primary kids who are donating their parents money. It bothers me quite a bit.

 

 

3 hours ago, Sauron said:

I wouldn't say LTT is nearly as bad as Logan Paul in any way. As I said, they're generally pretty responsible when they push their merchandising and they rarely even mention floatplane since they don't consider it a finished service. Other than that, some of it is unavoidable because of the medium itself - as I said, kids will get attached either way and the only way to avoid any influence in this sense would be to simply stop selling merchandise and floatplane subscriptions. Since neither of those are particularly egregious businesses I don't really think it's fair to demand they shut them down.

Stop putting words in my mouth. I have never demanded they shut it down.

What they could do is stop is being so defensive, stop putting quantity and revenue above quality and stop pushing this facade that they are somehow struggling for money (they sure want their audience to think that at least).

Perhaps they could stop posting ads masquerading as legitimate videos and then blame their users for not knowing about their code words (such as "product showcase" meaning ad, and then "forgetting" to put that in the title).

[Bombastinator]

4 hours ago, Sauron said:

Honestly MKBHD's titles are about the same quality as LTT's, aside from exceptions (like the "faster internet" video) they tell you fairly accurately what the video is about with some sensationalist addition...

 

 

are these really that different to you? Same goes for the thumbnails - if I couldn't see Marques' face in the background in the iPhone thumbnail I could easily have mistaken all of these for LTT videos.

I'd say it's a little bit different when the business in question is a megacorporation that produces and sells physical goods as their main business model. Of course LMG is still a business but donations are clearly much more impactful in their case - and they've shown that they're willing to invest any extra money in expanding their team rather than just hoarding it. Again, I don't really see a problem in that outside of the broader systemic issues that aren't really the fault of LMG.

I wouldn't say LTT is nearly as bad as Logan Paul in any way. As I said, they're generally pretty responsible when they push their merchandising and they rarely even mention floatplane since they don't consider it a finished service. Other than that, some of it is unavoidable because of the medium itself - as I said, kids will get attached either way and the only way to avoid any influence in this sense would be to simply stop selling merchandise and floatplane subscriptions. Since neither of those are particularly egregious businesses I don't really think it's fair to demand they shut them down.

 

Rolf.  Logan Paul.  Now there’s one desperate dude.  “You despise me so much come watch me get repetively hit in the face”

[Sauron]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

Stop putting words in my mouth. I have never demanded they shut it down.

I never said you demanded that. I said that the only way to prevent that would be to shut them down, and that I don't think it would be fair to ask them to do so.

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

What they could do is stop is being so defensive, stop putting quantity and revenue above quality and stop pushing this facade that they are somehow struggling for money (they sure want their audience to think that at least).

When have they presented themselves as "struggling for money"? On the contrary, it seems to me that every time they mention it they say they're doing just fine... so fine that they're constantly expanding their staff.

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

Perhaps they could stop posting ads masquerading as legitimate videos and then blame their users for not knowing about their code words (such as "product showcase" meaning ad, and then "forgetting" to put that in the title).

It's fine to call them out for mistakes like that but don't you think it's a little cynical to extend that critique to everything they put out even though, for most of it, that's not the case?

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

1) You're cherry picking.

I just looked for recent videos of a similar type - wouldn't make much sense to compare videos that aren't even remotely similar and MKBHD mostly puts out phone reviews, whereas LTT has (with some exceptions) moved away from both covering phones and straight up reviews.

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

2) Yes they are different, because MKBHD's videos actually has information in the title and thumbnail, while LTT's titles and thumbnails try and entice people into watching them by only providing a small amount of info.

I'd disagree on that, most LTT videos say in the title and/or in the thumbnail what the video is about. Does it really matter what brand their full metal keyboard's keycaps were in a video like that? Again, most of their stuff isn't reviews anymore, and when they do review something they generally mention it in the thumbnail. I'm looking over their recent uploads and frankly there are only a few titles where I can't really tell what the video is about - at least two of which would have been pretty hard to explain in the title anyway.

Spoiler

Is it possible that part of your complaints are more due to LTT changing its format over the years rather than just the titles being less clear?

[LAwLz]

11 hours ago, Sauron said:

I never said you demanded that. I said that the only way to prevent that would be to shut them down, and that I don't think it would be fair to ask them to do so.

They could just cut back on the clickbait and ads. Be more honest about stuff. For example instead of labeling paid ads as "product showcases", why not label them ad in the title?

 

11 hours ago, Sauron said:

When have they presented themselves as "struggling for money"? On the contrary, it seems to me that every time they mention it they say they're doing just fine... so fine that they're constantly expanding their staff.

Every time someone brings up how they use clickbait and the likes they say they have to do it in order to get the views necessary to pay all their employees and the likes. They constantly bring up how many people they have employed and their expenses. That seems to, at least to their viewers, send the message they they need financial help. That's why so many people are donating to them, and going out of their way to help LTT financially. Like I said earlier, they have viewers go out of their way to help LTT make more money. That's quite frankly fucked up, and I don't think people would do that (at much at least) if LTT stopped talking about how they must "game the system" to "stay competitive" (which is another way of saying "make more money").

 

Every time LTT talks about their operational expenses (which I have heard a lot for someone who doesn't even watch their videos, other than the WAN show), they give off the impression that they are FORCED to do certain things and that if they stopped, the company would go under. That in turn gives off the impression that they are struggling. If you have to do something you don't like in order to earn enough money to pay your employees and feed your family, that to me is sending the message that you're struggling for money.

 

If you ask me, the conversation should have looked like this:

Viewer: We don't like this. Stop doing it.

LTT: Okay, we'll do that. (or silence and continue doing it).

 

What happened was this:

Viewers: We don't like this. Stop doing it.

LTT: bawww we don't like it either but we HAVE to do it. If we don't then we won't be able tp pay all our employees. Look at how many employees we have and need to pay. We must make lots of money and yes we think it reduces the quality of our videos but we HAVE to. bawww

Young impressionable viewers: STOP hating on LTT! They have to do it! Stop being mean!

 

 

 

11 hours ago, Sauron said:

It's fine to call them out for mistakes like that but don't you think it's a little cynical to extend that critique to everything they put out even though, for most of it, that's not the case?

That's a big assumption you're making that it was a "mistake". I think it was intentional. I think LTT values money more than integrity and they have shown their true colors several times. How many times does LTT have to screw up before you stop defending them? For me that line was around 2-3 fuckups. How many have they done now? Like 10 maybe? Maybe more? And I am not talking about just things like "forgetting" to label ads as ads, but also things like taking on sketchy sponsors with bad reputations which were only pulled after the community got really angry about it.

At some point you have to stop assuming incompetence and start assuming they can't be trusted. Especially since the fuckups benefits LTT at the expense of their audience.

 

 

11 hours ago, Sauron said:

I just looked for recent videos of a similar type - wouldn't make much sense to compare videos that aren't even remotely similar and MKBHD mostly puts out phone reviews, whereas LTT has (with some exceptions) moved away from both covering phones and straight up reviews.

Yeah, so in order to show how "similar" thumbnails and titles are you ignored like 80% of MKBHD's videos, picked the most flamboyant ones and went "see they are totally the same!".

Yes, that is cherry picking.

 

 

11 hours ago, Sauron said:

I'd disagree on that, most LTT videos say in the title and/or in the thumbnail what the video is about. Does it really matter what brand their full metal keyboard's keycaps were in a video like that? Again, most of their stuff isn't reviews anymore, and when they do review something they generally mention it in the thumbnail. I'm looking over their recent uploads and frankly there are only a few titles where I can't really tell what the video is about - at least two of which would have been pretty hard to explain in the title anyway.

I would have changed the title on most of those videos to something more descriptive.

Do the videos have the same titles on Floatplane? If not, why not?

 

11 hours ago, Sauron said:

Is it possible that part of your complaints are more due to LTT changing its format over the years rather than just the titles being less clear?

One does not exclude the other.

I think their current format is crap because a lot of their audience look up to them and think LTT are knowledgeable. In reality, it seems to me like most of their videos (including as fast as possible) are littered with misinformation and non-trivial errors. And because their audience look up to them they are viewed as teachers rather than clowns. I think they need to either do proper informative content, or make it clear to their viewers that they are not an educational channel you should trust, and then do silly videos.

One or the other, not both. Because their viewers can't differentiate between goofing around, actual information, and misinformation.

 

I also think their titles and thumbnails are horrible, and Linus thinks so himself. He has said he is embarrassed about it. But apparently his dignity and integrity is worth less than the extra clicks they believe they get from it.

[Sauron]

4 hours ago, LAwLz said:

That's a big assumption you're making that it was a "mistake". I think it was intentional.

Just because something is intentional doesn't mean it's not a mistake

4 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I think LTT values money more than integrity and they have shown their true colors several times. How many times does LTT have to screw up before you stop defending them?

I'll defend the things that I think make sense, I wouldn't be here if I didn't care at least a little about what LTT does and has done in the past. Even if I didn't care that's not really an excuse to ignore criticisms that I feel are unfair. In the same way, in this very thread, I called out a defense that I didn't think was warranted - the "faster internet" video was pretty bad in terms of misleading the audience.

 

That doesn't mean I'll just count every minor slip up as a permanent black mark on LMG and everyone who works there. If they did this constantly for most of their videos then sure, I'd consider LTT a pretty bad channel - though that doesn't really make LMG employees bad people - but that's not the case, at least not in my opinion.

 

If I had to make a critique of LMG as a whole it wouldn't be on how they attract viewers or how they monetize their content but rather on the rampant consumerism that is implicitly promoted by the channel, which has been there from day 1 and is arguably the essence of the channel itself. It's hard to, in the same breath, criticize them for taking sponsor deals and being "creative" with the titles but then completely ignore that their channel is entirely dedicated to showcasing and glorifying consumer electronics - and by that same token it's pretty hard for me to take someone seriously when they paint the ads and "clickbait" titles as cynical and unacceptable while the latter is apparently just fine.

 

In this sense, MKBHD and all the other "techtubers" are equally to blame for pushing a wasteful lifestyle, even if they don't personally believe it's good (Linus has even said a couple of times that he would never personally buy a high end graphics card if he didn't get them as part of his work). You place MKBHD on some sort of pedestal of morality but most of his videos review flagship phones, the absolute pinnacle of pointless consumerism in the tech world.

4 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Yeah, so in order to show how "similar" thumbnails and titles are you ignored like 80% of MKBHD's videos, picked the most flamboyant ones and went "see they are totally the same!".

Yes, that is cherry picking.

You're missing the point - MKBHD uses, for the most part, a completely different content format from LTT. I don't think the other videos' titles are any better or worse than the ones from LTT I put in the larger screenshot, except for the ones I marked - but I can't really make a compelling case for it if I'm comparing completely different videos. To be honest it should be up to you to make a compelling case that MKBHD uses significantly better titles, after all you made that claim; but then I could dismiss any direct comparison as "cherry picking", couldn't I? Any overall comparison would be pretty much down to personal opinion, which isn't really something you can effectively argue...

4 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I would have changed the title on most of those videos to something more descriptive.

That's a long shot from "the titles are misleading and/or lies", isn't it? I could say the same about MKBHD videos if I wanted to, it's pretty hard to substantiate a qualitative claim like that... in short, you don't like the titles, and that's fine - but why do you have to make it a matter of moral principles when most of their titles are perfectly acceptable as neither lies nor particularly misleading?

4 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Do the videos have the same titles on Floatplane? If not, why not?

I have no idea, I don't have a floatplane subscription. If they are different I'd have to guess it's because they have no incentive to attract new viewers on a subscription based platform - but again, just a guess.

4 hours ago, LAwLz said:

One does not exclude the other.

I think their current format is crap because a lot of their audience look up to them and think LTT are knowledgeable. In reality, it seems to me like most of their videos (including as fast as possible) are littered with misinformation and non-trivial errors. And because their audience look up to them they are viewed as teachers rather than clowns. I think they need to either do proper informative content, or make it clear to their viewers that they are not an educational channel you should trust, and then do silly videos.

One or the other, not both. Because their viewers can't differentiate between goofing around, actual information, and misinformation.

I agree that misinformation should be avoided - though at the same time human beings make mistakes. I remember at least one case where Numberphile, one of the best educational channels on the whole website that features actual university professors, made a pretty big mistake that spread quite a bit of misinformation. And it's not like LTT has ever been more of an authority in the field than they are now, so that's not really something that changed over time. Higher quality control is not something I'll argue against though, that's always something to strive for and it's important to call out the misinformation.

 

I don't see what that has to do with the titles though.

5 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I also think their titles and thumbnails are horrible, and Linus thinks so himself. He has said he is embarrassed about it. But apparently his dignity and integrity is worth less than the extra clicks they believe they get from it.

They have gotten better, at least in my opinion, ever since Linus publicly said he saw them as a problem and would strive to improve. Not that Linus' dignity has ever been his priority

 

[Touch My Hamm]

This is more the evolution of the medium. We only have people to blame for what YouTube has turned into. If you dont watch the clickbait videos and all kids stopped clicking all of them they would disappear really quick. You cannot blame LTT for evolving with the medium, This is almost required or they wouldn't get the views required to turn a profit and keep the numbers they have. They are a company and companies need to make money and grow. just my IMO I guess, Sucks but only yourself and YouTube to blame. 

[lewdicrous]

6 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Do the videos have the same titles on Floatplane? If not, why not?

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

I have no idea, I don't have a floatplane subscription. If they are different I'd have to guess it's because they have no incentive to attract new viewers on a subscription based platform - but again, just a guess.

Titles on Floatplane and YouTube are the same for the most part, the only difference that I noticed is that they add "SPONSORED" or "SPONSORED BY [COMPANY]" to the titles on Floatplane, but not on YouTube. Something like the video below.

Sometimes you get different titles like on the video below.

 

54 minutes ago, GodSeph said:

This is more the evolution of the medium. We only have people to blame for what YouTube has turned into. If you dont watch the clickbait videos and all kids stopped clicking all of them they would disappear really quick. You cannot blame LTT for evolving with the medium, This is almost required or they wouldn't get the views required to turn a profit and keep the numbers they have. They are a company and companies need to make money and grow. just my IMO I guess, Sucks but only yourself and YouTube to blame. 

The "blame YouTube" excuse doesn't work that well when they do the same on Floatplane.

[Sauron]

8 minutes ago, lewdicrous said:

The "blame YouTube" excuse doesn't work that well when  they do the same on Floatplane.

Well... floatplane isn't where most of their audience is and there isn't much reason to change the titles on there really. After all, if you're subscribed to floatplane chances are you want to see almost every video they put out anyway.

[lewdicrous]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

Well... floatplane isn't where most of their audience is and there isn't much reason to change the titles on there really. After all, if you're subscribed to floatplane chances are you want to see almost every video they put out anyway.

Exactly my point.

Their excuse is that they need to use these sorts of titles to increase the amount of clicks a video gets. However, as you stated, Floatplane is a sub-to-view sort of site, so they don't really need to use the same titles, yet they still do that.

Why? I have no idea, I just find it weird how they say they need to do it on YouTube in order to stay afloat, but then use the same titles on Floatplane, but hey, I may be an anomaly.

[minibois]

Just now, lewdicrous said:

Their excuse is that they need to use these sorts of titles to increase the amount of clicks a video gets. However, as you stated, Floatplane is a sub-to-view sort of site, so they don't really need to use the same titles, yet they still do that.

They probably use the same titles on Floatplane and YouTube for ease. That way they don't have to come up with a new title for Floatplane (I get they upload to FP first, but what I mean is just they come up with a title and just use it everywhere).

I say they use it everywhere.. But I don't know what sort of titles and thumbnails are used on Billibilli though..

 

My main complaints with these titles will still be making it difficult to find the video at a later date..

[Bombastinator]

TLDNR: discusses trends in headlines in society in general. not specific to LTT

 

The problem with clickbait in general, ignoring whether LTT is a perpetrator or not, is that it’s mere existence anywhere causes headlines to lose value to consumers. Not producers, just consumers.  Producers have a different and almost opposite criteria. They want the headline to cause the consumer believe the body copy contains valuable information.  

Consumers on the other hand want to know if a work is something that contains information useful to them.

We went through a period where headlines were trustable as to being a description of what the body of the work contained.  Trust was developed.  That has not been true for many years now, and the exhaustion of the public is growing.  There is still an attempt to glean information from headlines, which more often than not contains little if any.

 

Its not a question of if LTT is a major offender.  There are much more egregious violators.  It’s a question of continuum.  How much is too much?

 

Sometimes the body copy is misleading crap too these days.

I recently ran across a string of science writer articles claiming a generalized way to cure cancer had been determined.  They were all works purporting to describe what was in another work.  NONE of them would link the actual work though some pretended to.  Links to the main site where the original work was posted, but not the original work.  I don’t trust any of them.  I very much doubt that a generalized cure for cancer has actually been discovered as these articles purport.  

[lewdicrous]

30 minutes ago, minibois said:

They probably use the same titles on Floatplane and YouTube for ease. That way they don't have to come up with a new title for Floatplane (I get they upload to FP first, but what I mean is just they come up with a title and just use it everywhere).

Maybe so, but if that's true then it brings up this question: why do they remove "sponsored" from the titles on YouTube?

 

Personally, I stopped watching LTT's main videos cause of how ridiculous their titles are, especially after the stream that they made (linked multiple times on this thread), and I doubt that I'm alone here, it just sucks seeing one of the channels that got me into tech and motivated me to build my own PC is going down this road.

[yolosnail]

10 minutes ago, lewdicrous said:

Exactly my point.

Their excuse is that they need to use these sorts of titles to increase the amount of clicks a video gets. However, as you stated, Floatplane is a sub-to-view sort of site, so they don't really need to use the same titles, yet they still do that.

Why? I have no idea, I just find it weird how they say they need to do it on YouTube in order to stay afloat, but then use the same titles on Floatplane, but hey, I may be an anomaly.

What tipped me over the edge was the CRAZY laptop video title.

 

I'm a Floatplane subscriber so literally never watch the videos on YouTube, and as such not usually subjected to the clickbait titles. When I saw that one 

 

Plus, Linus has covered Clevo laptops plenty of times on the channel, and I'd be willing to bet to the average person Clevo are just as unknown as Asus or MSI!

[Sauron]

18 minutes ago, lewdicrous said:

Why? I have no idea, I just find it weird how they say they need to do it on YouTube in order to stay afloat, but then use the same titles on Floatplane, but hey, I may be an anomaly.

I don't think it's much of a stretch to think that they think the titles with youtube in mind, then just use the same titles for floatplane for simplicity's sake.

[Bombastinator]

3 minutes ago, lewdicrous said:

Maybe so, but if that's true then it brings up this question: why do they remove "sponsored" from the titles on YouTube?

 

Personally, I stopped watching LTT's main videos cause of how ridiculous their titles are, especially after the stream that they made (linked multiple times on this thread), and I doubt that I'm alone here, it just sucks seeing one of the channels that got me into tech and motivated me to built my own PC is going down this road.

I still watch them.  It’s more of a speculative action though.  LTT tends to do weird and extreme stuff with computer parts, they tend to provide information about when a computer part is useful to someone, what that use is, and to whom it might be useful, and they tend to be factual.  Basically I watch them on the basis of rep.  Also I’ve got more time to waste than most.  The “all metal keyboard one” didn’t bug me.  The headline translated to me as “something involving some sort of test regarding the use of metal instead of plastic in keyboards”. The headline could have been “messing about with metal parts for keyboards”  and I would have been just as happy.   Apparently not everyone though.

The title still does generally contain some descriptor of the subject matter.  The most recent one that didn’t was a claim in the headline that the article contained information about Apple heat issues when it did not.  That one I found kind of annoying.