The situation at Tek syndicate

[Snooli]

The biggest problem I see here are motivations for content. Tek Syndicate is Wendell's hobby, but Logan's job. And I completely understand (but don't agree with) Logan's choices regarding running Tek Syndicate as a company. The problem is, that he (and Pistol) were the only ones taking it that way. Qain and Wendell did it for fun and Jennifer (according to Logan, and this time I trust him) left to start her own company.

These two distinct approaches to YT had no chance of lasting for a long time. For Logan, it's #1 priority to make money and pump out videos in equal intervals, whereas Wendell doesn't care about money, he can put out videos when he is not needed in his actuall job.

 

TL;DR:

It never could've worked with two people doing one thing for completely different reasons.

[Carclis]

Has there been any statement of what is happening at Tek Syndicate? I have seen the post in their forums where Logan is asking for a clean slate, but is that reasonable when there has been no transparency at all. Had TS delivered on their Patreon rewards I would agree that financials should be kept private, but this is now a situation where a service has been paid for and not delivered upon and the community is expected to trust the company again? 

[toms94z71]

Wendell was the whole reason I watched the Tek, if he isn't on there I won't watch anymore.

[suicidalfranco]

this week's tek was just sad to look at without wendell

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, Carclis said:

Has there been any statement of what is happening at Tek Syndicate? I have seen the post in their forums where Logan is asking for a clean slate, but is that reasonable when there has been no transparency at all. Had TS delivered on their Patreon rewards I would agree that financials should be kept private, but this is now a situation where a service has been paid for and not delivered upon and the community is expected to trust the company again? 

Here's the thing... you're wrong.

 

Patreon Rewards are GOALS, not Services that are guaranteed. And that's the problem. Many people - both here and on the TS forums, feel that the rewards from Patreon were some guaranteed thing. They weren't. They aren't. They never were. Patreon is essentially a voluntary donation service.

 

If the reason you donated to TS (eg: to get the rewards) isn't being fulfilled, you should immediately stop donating, and either leave them forever, or simply wait for them to get their act together and actually fulfill the rewards.

 

I do believe TS will survive. I think that Wendell will either stay on as a reduced capacity "side" office, or will occasionally guest contribute content/guest star on videos. Qain is gone and I doubt he'll ever come back - especially if Logan told the truth about Qain not wanting to do his job, but wanting to be a partner and wanting to do things that Logan DIDN'T want him doing.

 

As far as I know, there's been no further statements from anyone besides the "Clean Slate" blogpost that Logan made.

[Carclis]

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

Here's the thing... you're wrong.

 

Patreon Rewards are GOALS, not Services that are guaranteed. And that's the problem. Many people - both here and on the TS forums, feel that the rewards from Patreon were some guaranteed thing. They weren't. They aren't. They never were. Patreon is essentially a voluntary donation service.

 

If the reason you donated to TS (eg: to get the rewards) isn't being fulfilled, you should immediately stop donating, and either leave them forever, or simply wait for them to get their act together and actually fulfill the rewards.

 

I do believe TS will survive. I think that Wendell will either stay on as a reduced capacity "side" office, or will occasionally guest contribute content/guest star on videos. Qain is gone and I doubt he'll ever come back - especially if Logan told the truth about Qain not wanting to do his job, but wanting to be a partner and wanting to do things that Logan DIDN'T want him doing.

 

As far as I know, there's been no further statements from anyone besides the "Clean Slate" blogpost that Logan made.

Wouldn't you say it's extremely disingenuous of them to set goals which were never realistic then? Two years went by and goals were missed over and over again. For the record I never donated to TS through Patreon. I'm just shocked that they took their fans for granted and treated them like dirt.

[dalekphalm]

Just now, Carclis said:

Wouldn't you say it's extremely disingenuous of them to set goals which were never realistic then? Two years went by and goals were missed over and over again. For the record I never donated to TS through Patreon. I'm just shocked that they took their fans for granted and treated them like dirt.

Well of course it's disingenuous. But that doesn't mean there were any legal obligations there.

 

I would say that if it's really been over 2 years since Patreon Rewards were established, and they still haven't delivered, then... well... (and I'm sorry for doing this), I'm putting some of the blame on the Patreon backers themselves.

 

If you donate to someone who promises something, and fails to deliver, but you really like them? Sure cut them some slack, give them another chance. If they then FAIL TO DELIVER FOR 2 FUCKING YEARS? I mean, c'mon. You're just throwing money down the toilet at that point.

 

My point is this: We, as non-TS employees/shareholders, should not get any access to their financial information or internal business operations. If they're not up to the quality people demand, people should stop donating.

 

I mean, jesus, it shouldn't have taken this meltdown for people to stop donating, if it was really that bad.

 

Who's the bigger fool, the fool who keeps asking for money but isn't organized enough to deliver, or the fool who keeps giving money knowing that they keep failing to deliver?

[manikyath]

3 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Well of course it's disingenuous. But that doesn't mean there were any legal obligations there.

maybe this is the right wording:

there's no legal obligations, there's only social ones.

 

you promise your neighbor to trim your hedge, you wont go to jail if you dont, but at least your neighbor will be displeased when you dont have a reason why the hedge is still a rainforest.

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, manikyath said:

maybe this is the right wording:

there's no legal obligations, there's only social ones.

 

you promise your neighbor to trim your hedge, you wont go to jail if you dont, but at least your neighbor will be displeased when you dont have a reason why the hedge is still a rainforest.

True, but your neighbour won't them demand to see your tax returns or bank account, because you are out of money and can't afford to help him trim the hedge for free anymore.

[manikyath]

2 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

True, but your neighbour won't them demand to see your tax returns or bank account, because you are out of money and can't afford to help him trim the hedge for free anymore.

well, if your neighbor paid you to trim the hedge it makes sense for him to expect return on investment.

 

and seeing the quite exponentional difference between the cost of a hedge trim, and the cost of the services wendell was providing to teksyndicate (and being a 30% shareholder, which doesnt make you very happy if you arent told where money is going)

[dalekphalm]

Just now, manikyath said:

well, if your neighbor paid you to trim the hedge it makes sense for him to expect return on investment.

 

and seeing the quite exponentional difference between the cost of a hedge trim, and the cost of the services wendell was providing to teksyndicate (and being a 30% shareholder, which doesnt make you very happy if you arent told where money is going)

But people never paid TS for services rendered, nor did they sign any sort of ROI agreement.

 

Patreon is a DONATION, not a payment, nor is it a service subscription. You give them money IN THE HOPES that they make better content, and IN THE HOPES that they fulfill the "Rewards" they might list.

 

That's it.

 

No ROI. No service agreements. No guarantees on content. No refund policy if content was not delivered, etc.

 

Giving TS money through Patreon is no different then me giving a random dude at the bus stop a $20 bill. I might hope he goes on to better his life, but if he goes off and buys some booze, well I can't stop that.

 

What I CAN do, is learn from my lesson, and not donate again.

 

Now, if I was a Manufacturer/Hardware Vendor, and I PAID TS to do a specific video, and they failed to deliver? Well that's entirely different. We would already have a strict legal contract in place, covering all eventualities (including failure to deliver).

[manikyath]

2 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

But people never paid TS for services rendered, nor did they sign any sort of ROI agreement.

 

Patreon is a DONATION, not a payment, nor is it a service subscription. You give them money IN THE HOPES that they make better content, and IN THE HOPES that they fulfill the "Rewards" they might list.

 

That's it.

 

No ROI. No service agreements. No guarantees on content. No refund policy if content was not delivered, etc.

 

Giving TS money through Patreon is no different then me giving a random dude at the bus stop a $20 bill. I might hope he goes on to better his life, but if he goes off and buys some booze, well I can't stop that.

 

What I CAN do, is learn from my lesson, and not donate again.

 

Now, if I was a Manufacturer/Hardware Vendor, and I PAID TS to do a specific video, and they failed to deliver? Well that's entirely different. We would already have a strict legal contract in place, covering all eventualities (including failure to deliver).

well, patreons have no right to demand anything, they do have a right to be pissed off.

 

in terms of wendell, from what i've seen, he has quite the right to demand, although i wouldnt say his name is entirely clean in this story either. something strange is going on here, and from what i can make up no one here is speaking the complete truth.

(i'll put it like this: they all say things that are true, it comes down to things they arent saying.)

[othertomperson]

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

Patreon Rewards are GOALS, not Services that are guaranteed. And that's the problem. Many people - both here and on the TS forums, feel that the rewards from Patreon were some guaranteed thing. They weren't. They aren't. They never were. Patreon is essentially a voluntary donation service.

 

If the reason you donated to TS (eg: to get the rewards) isn't being fulfilled, you should immediately stop donating, and either leave them forever, or simply wait for them to get their act together and actually fulfill the rewards.

 

That's how people see it though. Whenever the change is made from fun, ad-supported entertainment to something you're actually exchanging money for -- even if it's a "donation" -- the psychology of the whole thing changes. You must have noticed the change in attitude here, for example, when Vessel introduced a timed pay-wall and turned Linus's subscribers from viewers into consumers. The difference is that Tek Syndicate made actual promises. "Give us x amount and we will do y." Yeah legally what you are saying is true, but this is the perception, and not delivering is firstly a good way to lose your backers, and also piss off your community.

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, manikyath said:

well, patreons have no right to demand anything, they do have a right to be pissed off.

 

in terms of wendell, from what i've seen, he has quite the right to demand, although i wouldnt say his name is entirely clean in this story either. something strange is going on here, and from what i can make up no one here is speaking the complete truth.

(i'll put it like this: they all say things that are true, it comes down to things they arent saying.)

Oh yes, I fully agree - Wendell is in an entirely different position then the community. He has a right to be mad. The community just needs to cool the fuck off until Wendell and Logan sort everything out.

 

I also think Wendell, while not intentionally trying to mislead people, have posted some misleading content.

 

For example: He claims that the company has had $125K increase in revenue, year over year - okay. I believe him. TS was doing rather well for themselves for a while.

 

He then questions how TS can be cash low (Although, frankly, as a business owner, he should know that cash reserves and revenue can be very different). He then goes on to say that his "crew" (basically the Kentucky office) has invoiced the TS main office for $13.5K, and because they've taken so little of the money, he says there should be tons of money left.

 

That statement is either misleading, or missing information. Wendell is a 30% shareholder of the company, and according to his own words, he gets 30% of the PROFIT (now remember folks, profit is what is left over after all expenses, salaries, taxes, fees, etc). In addition to that, he, along with every other TS member, likely get a salary - a set paid amount of money that they make per year.

 

So that $13.5K DEFINITELY doesn't include Wendell's Salary (assuming he has one), nor his share of the profits. Now he also said that he generally just reinvests his profits back into the company. So I assume that Wendell's "take home" money is pretty much only his Salary from TS. Now I don't know what TS pays him, but I bet it's a lot, given his skills and experience.

 

Point being, there's more to the story. We still don't have all the information, and while I don't think Logan OR Wendell is lying, they're both definitely not telling us the whole truth.

 

2 minutes ago, othertomperson said:

That's how people see it though. Whenever the change is made from fun, ad-supported entertainment to something you're actually exchanging money for -- even if it's a "donation" -- the psychology of the whole thing changes. You must have noticed the change in attitude here, for example, when Vessel introduced a timed pay-wall and turned Linus's subscribers from viewers into consumers. The difference is that Tek Syndicate made actual promises. "Give us x amount and we will do y." Yeah legally what you are saying is true, but this is the perception, and not delivering is firstly a good way to lose your backers, and also piss off your community.

I agree - it is a perception problem. The Patreon backers see themselves as "investors", basically. The same issue happens on Kickstarter all the time. People think they're "investing" or "buying" something. They're not. They're donating money, and hoping that some time later, something good may come of it.

 

Personally, this is why I feel that using Patreon is a slippery slope. Same with any donations. You either should keep the donations vague (Eg: These donations go to help us. Period. We won't say exactly where the money goes or what changes will happen because of the extra money), or be very specific, and be very open (Eg: Linus Office move).

[othertomperson]

4 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

I agree - it is a perception problem. The Patreon backers see themselves as "investors", basically. The same issue happens on Kickstarter all the time. People think they're "investing" or "buying" something. They're not. They're donating money, and hoping that some time later, something good may come of it.

 

Personally, this is why I feel that using Patreon is a slippery slope. Same with any donations. You either should keep the donations vague (Eg: These donations go to help us. Period. We won't say exactly where the money goes or what changes will happen because of the extra money), or be very specific, and be very open (Eg: Linus Office move).

The difference is that Kickstarter is paying, or donating, for a promise for some tangible thing to exist in future. Patreon is paying a prolific person to support the content that you were enjoying anyway. I've seen people treat this directly as payment. "Subscribe to my Patreon and get one drawing a month. Get two drawings a month if you give z amount". Really using it like that isn't any different from LMG's use of Vessel. I think Patreon is meant to be used like the latter, but TS were using it as if it were Kickstarter.

[dalekphalm]

1 minute ago, othertomperson said:

The difference is that Kickstarter is paying, or donating, for a promise. Patreon is paying a prolific person to support the content that you were enjoying anyway. I've seen people treat this directly as payment. "Subscribe to my Patreon and get one drawing a month. Get two drawings a month if you give z amount". Really using it like that isn't any different from LMG's use of Vessel. I think Patreon is meant to be used like the latter, but TS were using it as if it were Kickstarter.

Could be - but even in the cases where people promise "1 drawing a month, and 2 if you spend x", if they fail to deliver, there's nothing you can do except unsub from the donation. Patreon doesn't guarantee anything. Nor does the prolific person in question commit to giving access to personal private information if they fail to provide their promise.

 

Here's the biggest issue: People are entering into an agreement with little to no contractual obligations on the part of the YouTuber. Basically, you agree to donate money. They promise to provide certain services. But they don't lay out the terms for what happens if they fail to deliver.

[manikyath]

10 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

--

+1ing there.

 

just wanna add, wendell's problem is that he's a very clever guy, he's just not very well spoken sometimes. he may know what he's saying, he may just not realise that others dont understand his buisinesstalk, or that he left out some details here and there.

 

it's like back when i still watched TS (reason why is unrelated) logan would often mess up between "tier 3" and "level 3", within the context you were able to understand which he meant, but sadly we do not have much context to rely on here.

 

something to note is that the year over year growth kinda exactly lines up with the growth of the company, AKA money left over at the end of the month wouldnt rise as exponentially.

 

unfortunately, something i do need to agree with is that logan has moved a worryingly large amount of times.

[dalekphalm]

3 minutes ago, manikyath said:

+1ing there.

 

just wanna add, wendell's problem is that he's a very clever guy, he's just not very well spoken sometimes. he may know what he's saying, he may just not realise that others dont understand his buisinesstalk, or that he left out some details here and there.

 

it's like back when i still watched TS (reason why is unrelated) logan would often mess up between "tier 3" and "level 3", within the context you were able to understand which he meant, but sadly we do not have much context to rely on here.

 

something to note is that the year over year growth kinda exactly lines up with the growth of the company, AKA money left over at the end of the month wouldnt rise as exponentially.

 

unfortunately, something i do need to agree with is that logan has moved a worryingly large amount of times.

Agreed on him moving. Stupid business decision? Yes. But lots of small business owners make stupid mistakes.

 

And to be fair, if he's finally found a new "home", that he feels comfortable in, AND has a large talent pool to draw from? This could be good for TS in the long run.

[manikyath]

Just now, dalekphalm said:

Agreed on him moving. Stupid business decision? Yes. But lots of small business owners make stupid mistakes.

 

And to be fair, if he's finally found a new "home", that he feels comfortable in, AND has a large talent pool to draw from? This could be good for TS in the long run.

i just hope he found his new home... and while it could be huge for TS, logan's "ignoring the problem makes it go away" approach isnt doing much good, and pistol well.. being pistol.. isnt the greatest of things to happen in this situation either.

although, there's nothing pistol did that made her deserve the kind of things said about her in the original thread.

 

i feel part of this mess is people feeding off of drama, and fueling the drama so they can feed more before winter comes. logan has a very distinct group of "haters" (on every video he releases, there's a dislike within a minute or so, that's a VERY loyal hater...) who i feel may been at the base of this going *this* far out of hand.

 

lets just hope this flies over, that stuff gets settled, and that not too many casualties will fall.

[othertomperson]

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

Could be - but even in the cases where people promise "1 drawing a month, and 2 if you spend x", if they fail to deliver, there's nothing you can do except unsub from the donation. Patreon doesn't guarantee anything. Nor does the prolific person in question commit to giving access to personal private information if they fail to provide their promise.

 

Here's the biggest issue: People are entering into an agreement with little to no contractual obligations on the part of the YouTuber. Basically, you agree to donate money. They promise to provide certain services. But they don't lay out the terms for what happens if they fail to deliver.

Contractually, sure. Although a lot of people do rely on Petreon to pay their bills, so if they do haemorrhage patrons they run into serious problems so that should offer some incentive to keep the content coming.

[Misanthrope]

7 hours ago, Snooli said:

The biggest problem I see here are motivations for content. Tek Syndicate is Wendell's hobby, but Logan's job. And I completely understand (but don't agree with) Logan's choices regarding running Tek Syndicate as a company. The problem is, that he (and Pistol) were the only ones taking it that way. Qain and Wendell did it for fun and Jennifer (according to Logan, and this time I trust him) left to start her own company.

These two distinct approaches to YT had no chance of lasting for a long time. For Logan, it's #1 priority to make money and pump out videos in equal intervals, whereas Wendell doesn't care about money, he can put out videos when he is not needed in his actuall job.

 

TL;DR:

It never could've worked with two people doing one thing for completely different reasons.

Re: Wendell far surpases Logan in output if you consider the Hardware and Linux channels. As you say, he managed even while running his own separate company and a pretty consistent streaming channel to (PGP on youtube and Twitch). To be fair it's pretty rare for someone to compare to Wendell since the dude is well...kind of insane...in that lovable autistic way but still.

 

Honestly different persons have different rhythms and ways of working one of my favorite examples is Jayz2cents vs Barnacules: they have pretty similar situations right now however Jay is far more consistent in delivering content and Jerry is very hit and miss since he puts a far greater effort in trying (sometimes desperately) to be interesting and funny and covering a very wide range of topics while Jay is comfortable just fucking around with GPUs and cars for most of his videos.

 

Neither approach is inherently better or worst (As counterintuitive as it seems, Barnacules actually is the bigger channel right now and has been for a while) and one can find audiences for a multitude of styles.

 

The problem is however, that Logan seems to have a far too fragile of an ego to understand all of this and accept that he probably should step back and let Wendell and Qain be far more involved: Having less "Logan" videos doesn't means it would be a bad thing for the channel, on the contrary I'd make space for a wider variety of styles in the content attracting more overall viewers. It's regrettable but it's hard to find sympathy for him after his damn meltdowns.

[Misanthrope]

21 minutes ago, othertomperson said:

Contractually, sure. Although a lot of people do rely on Petreon to pay their bills, so if they do haemorrhage patrons they run into serious problems so that should offer some incentive to keep the content coming.

I would add that beyond having a legal contract Patreon never enforces that users need to remain supporting and can in fact discontinue at any time. This makes taking care of your audience and constantly growing it far more important since normal deals with sponsors usually have more "guaranteed" deals of sponsoring x amount of videos vs being at the whim of Patreons that, as we've seen, can very quickly turn on you (and imho it was justified this time around).

 

So even if legally they can do whatever it's still a bad idea.

[Trik'Stari]

I see a problem with Tek Syndicate going forward.

 

After all of this, who in the industry is going to work with Logan? And I don't mean the youtuber industry, I mean the PC parts industry. Who is going to trust him to deliver on content, when he's failed to do so in the past (according to Wendell and Qain at least. Or at least, one post by Wendell suggested as much, that a lot of content had failed to ever come out because of deadlines that were not met).

 

Not to mention, who is going to want to put time and money into working with him, if they think that the viewers and potential customers, won't watch, or won't trust what he has to say? Who is going to want him advertising his product, if they know that potential customers, are going to watch the video, and maybe scroll down to the comments section and see a bunch of "LOGAN IS A LYING BASTARD!" comments?

 

I can see Wendell and Qain continuing, because the community has largely sided with them. Logan is attempting to back track but the damage has already been done.

 

Meh. Just my two cents.

 

(grumbles something about how his thread got locked and yet this one continues despite it being a repost)

[SurvivorNVL]

1 hour ago, Trik'Stari said:

I see a problem with Tek Syndicate going forward.

 

After all of this, who in the industry is going to work with Logan? And I don't mean the youtuber industry, I mean the PC parts industry. Who is going to trust him to deliver on content, when he's failed to do so in the past (according to Wendell and Qain at least. Or at least, one post by Wendell suggested as much, that a lot of content had failed to ever come out because of deadlines that were not met).

 

Not to mention, who is going to want to put time and money into working with him, if they think that the viewers and potential customers, won't watch, or won't trust what he has to say? Who is going to want him advertising his product, if they know that potential customers, are going to watch the video, and maybe scroll down to the comments section and see a bunch of "LOGAN IS A LYING BASTARD!" comments?

 

I can see Wendell and Qain continuing, because the community has largely sided with them. Logan is attempting to back track but the damage has already been done.

 

Meh. Just my two cents.

 

(grumbles something about how his thread got locked and yet this one continues despite it being a repost)

Dream goal:  Qain, Wendell, Jennifer, Jay and Jerry all team up and make:  "Bat Knife Incorporated."

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, Trik'Stari said:

I see a problem with Tek Syndicate going forward.

 

After all of this, who in the industry is going to work with Logan? And I don't mean the youtuber industry, I mean the PC parts industry. Who is going to trust him to deliver on content, when he's failed to do so in the past (according to Wendell and Qain at least. Or at least, one post by Wendell suggested as much, that a lot of content had failed to ever come out because of deadlines that were not met).

 

Not to mention, who is going to want to put time and money into working with him, if they think that the viewers and potential customers, won't watch, or won't trust what he has to say? Who is going to want him advertising his product, if they know that potential customers, are going to watch the video, and maybe scroll down to the comments section and see a bunch of "LOGAN IS A LYING BASTARD!" comments?

 

I can see Wendell and Qain continuing, because the community has largely sided with them. Logan is attempting to back track but the damage has already been done.

 

Meh. Just my two cents.

 

(grumbles something about how his thread got locked and yet this one continues despite it being a repost)

I understand your points and that feeling of distrust, and I feel that Logan probably will have some backlash from the Hardware Vendors. But I think in the end they'll just tighten up their contracts a bit because his viewerbase is too lucrative. And the fans? They'll forget sooner or later.

 

Also your thread didn't get locked because of your post. It got locked because people were saying insane things that had no evidence to back it up, and were also apparently fighting over Qain vs anti-Qain.