LMG Sponsor Complaints

[spaghet rat]

7 hours ago, kirashi said:

Paying for reviews may also violate consumer protection laws in various jurisdictions.  

they are no longer working with that sponsor

[Knopfjim]

On 5/23/2023 at 10:54 PM, LinusTech said:

Looks like the first year of subscription is mandatory for 8Sleep. I actually didn't realize this because I've been using mine without a subscription and I'm pretty happy with it. Wouldn't bother with the subscription.

 

The price is certainly high - especially now that we factor in that the first year of subscription isn't included - but I was going based on my own "i dunno if this is necessary anyway" experience.

 

I think we'll be re-evaluating any future collaborations with 8Sleep based on the community feedback regardless of my experiences with the product.

I certainly didn't intend to mislead anyone or hide the subscription. I intentionally mentioned it very clearly at the beginning of the sponsored video.

 

 

 

Eightsleep:

To be honest, I like the product. They mentioned the subscription a minimum of 3 times during the purchasing process. Therefore I factored it in to the cost. 
On top the coupon paid for the first 1,5 years of subscription. 
 

At the end it’s a expensive product… BUT THIS IS NOTHING NEW.

[Ex14]

On 6/3/2023 at 12:02 PM, RaccoonTOF said:

Again, this would be the case had it been enabled after I received it personally - but with it enabled AT THE FACTORY prior to delivery to me, there is NO WAY for it to be in my personal microsoft account - unless the OEM (ASUS in this case) had my MS account info PRIOR to the install (potentially the case with some third party "custom build" shops I suppose) there is no way that ASUS would know WHAT MS account the device was going to be registered to on delivery...

Yeap i understand that. I'm saying that it should still be in your account listed in the steps above. Just a note we never have customer's windows/microsoft accounts, so best guess is when you link your account its does something like this already. Its just a wierd behaviour (which at the point of time i felt was a big issue but i guess no one thought much of it 2 or more years ago). As much as i want to throw ASUS under the bus, it is not their fault at all and this behaviour is Soley on Microsoft part. 

[Divader]

So does anyone actually know what features you can still use after you cancel the ridiculous Eight Sleep sub? So far I've read conflicting info about not being able to use the app at all, or directly from Linus that he can still use the app. But I've also heard from other channels' videos that people who bought back before sub was made mandatory are getting the functionality grandfathered in, which would include Linus. So which is it?

 

All I really care about is being able to do basic controls like set the temp and schedule a timer for when it turns itself on and off - not so bothered about having the 'autopilot' if it means I need to pay for it forever.

 

I'm willing to pay a lot for a good sleep and it would be nice to be able to make an informed purchase before the discount offer expires tomorrow.

[iPolymer]

Regarding the latest LTT video, did Linus advertise for a Dropshipping business? And ironically, this video is about a product that is likely scamming or duping through these Dropship sites. 

 

It feels weird that he makes videos making fun of these types of sellers, such as Dup LTT products or haul videos from Amazon or Aliexpress.

 

Most recently, Linus mocked dropship in his tech cleaning video with Luke. 

 

 

Edited June 8, 2023 by iPolymer
clarity

[SpencerHalse]

Completely agree. Came here to write the same thing.

 

Most people generally have a distaste towards dropshipping, etc. and for many viewers this would extend to the AutoDS sponsorship on this video. Most people who are aware of what dropshipping is, see it as a scam.

[SpencerHalse]

As has been mentioned above:

 

I haven't come to the LTT forum in many years but feel the need to mention this.

 

AutoDS - facilitating dropshipping which most find to be a scam/get rich quick scheme. As I mentioned below the OP thread in the other forum, most people generally have a distaste towards dropshipping, etc. and for many viewers this would extend to the AutoDS sponsorship on this video. Most people who are aware of what dropshipping is, see it as a scam.

[CPotter]

On 6/3/2023 at 3:19 PM, egef said:

Am I the only one who was creeped out my Bark Parental Controls? The invasion of privacy aside, "we scrape your kids' social media messages" sounds like a scandal, not a feature. I don't think it's responsible to encourage parents to hand over their kids' messages to Bark, a company whose privacy policy explicitly states that they will give out users' data to third parties (unless I'm reading it wrong.)

 

ETA: Also they say that they're allowed to give out all the data they store to an acquiring company with no restrictions -was that not the reason LMG stopped doing VPN sponsorships?

Hey, Bark being promoted was an oversight on my part, I missed some of the details related to data sharing. I understand your initial point, and that's also a consideration to not work with them. I apologize and we won't be promoting them again.

[ExtraCheese]

So, I just watched this video:

 

And the end-roll ad was for AutoDS; a drop-ship company. I was curious, so I decided to check them out and make an account, to see what kind of products they have.

 

However, there's no free account, so you have to buy a subscription before you can browse their site.

 

I clicked the LTT sponsor link, and here's the subscriptions options which are available through the "linus" affiliate link:

 

However, I decided to go to their main website, and browse a bit, and I notice their public facing "pricing" page, which looks like this:

 

The affiliate link they gave to LTT, makes their products MORE expensive. The "Import 200" option, is DOUBLE the price for LTT viewers, than it is for the general public. The other options are completely different in name number, but have the same features. The 400/500 level is almost double the price, and the 800/1K level is 51.7% more expensive.

 

Can someone please make this make sense?

[Holmes108]

Strange indeed, although the 2 higher tiers do have somewhat different bullet points, so perhaps they aren't exactly like for like... but if the tiers are different, you still have to ask "why?" lol

 

You do get a free trial through LTT, so.... there's that. 

 

Is it possible the region/currency changed or something?

[ExtraCheese]

I didn't change anything. I'm not using a VPN, and I'm in the US (Georgia, so not near a boarder), so there's not more than one common currency here; although the degree to which a website could determine that is minimal anyway. IDK

[Holmes108]

3 minutes ago, ExtraCheese said:

I didn't change anything. I'm not using a VPN, and I'm in the US (Georgia, so not near a boarder), so there's not more than one common currency here; although the degree to which a website could determine that is minimal anyway. IDK

 

Yeah, weird. Even if you get more for your money with the affiliate, they don't make it very clear for the consumer how.

[ROOTminus1]

1 hour ago, SpencerHalse said:

As has been mentioned above:

 

I haven't come to the LTT forum in many years but feel the need to mention this.

 

AutoDS - facilitating dropshipping which most find to be a scam/get rich quick scheme. As I mentioned below the OP thread in the other forum, most people generally have a distaste towards dropshipping, etc. and for many viewers this would extend to the AutoDS sponsorship on this video. Most people who are aware of what dropshipping is, see it as a scam.

What struck me with the sponsor segment is the (justified) hate that was openly held toward scalpers during the GPU shortage is exactly this^^

 

How can LTT be so vocally critical of +cost, 0value reselling, then 18 months later accept $$ from a company not only enabling the practice, but actively promoting the predatory aspects of the field?

[OhYou_]

59 minutes ago, ExtraCheese said:

Can someone please make this make sense?

The only person to do that would be autods, like emailing their contact or something. 
there is already lots of negative speculation on the sponsor, which this pricing thing is not helping lol. I think instead the company should step up and come here to defend their product but idk.  

[Bogus9084]

Made an account to respond to the AutoDS ad - Cannot believe Linus was actually able to record a Dropshipping ad without SOMEONE catching it. Dropshipping is bottom-feeding garbage and I am amazed it made it through any review processes.

 

They even have a way to browse for products to rip people off with...

[ExtraCheese]

Quote

there is already lots of negative speculation on the sponsor,

Oh, there is? I didn't notice anything in the comments, and this is the first I've heard of this sponsor. I guess they've been on other videos? Or maybe I just missed posts here about this video.

 

Either way, I didn't mean to beat a dead horse.

[NotAlex]

It baffles me that AutoDS somehow slipped through the cracks. While I get there's nothing illegal about drop shipping, it's just plain scummy. I get that's it's not Linus who accepts the deals personally, but surely, he must have smelt something was up while reading the script, right? I don't have much else to say that anyone else hasn't already said, but come on, promoting a service that helps scammers scam is just something else.

[puppygirl]

This latest sponsor rubbed me wrong enough to justify signing up for an account for a forum I probably won't ever use again. I usually enjoy the videos, but forums aren't my thing, so I'll just say my piece.

 

AutoDS is a really embarrassing sponsorship for LMG to have taken money from. As iPolymer noted, promoting a product that exists to allow you to try to dupe people out of money by selling garbage products with misleading product descriptions, in a video *about* garbage products with misleading product descriptions...it's just truly baffling how y'all managed to let this happen. It's so gross and awkward that it's *almost* funny, but y'all are too big and have been around too long for this to feel excusable. Give them back their money and take down the video; re-upload without the sponsor if you want. Anything less is just...so tasteless.

[Kilrah]

@ExtraCheese merged into existing discussion in the sponsor complaint thread

[B_Rad15]

Incredibly disappointing to see you promote a company pushing plastic waste and straight up scamming customers (yes, imo charging people more to be the middle man on the exact same service is a scam). Plus it's got algorithmic pricing trying to squeeze every last possible dollar out of people for something they aren't even making. Having none of that money go back to the original product hurts them and the added cost the dropshipper adds hurts the customer without giving them any of the benefits traditional wholesalers give (better shipping time, returns, any amount of quality filtering). You talk so much about quality for LTT store and how much you're against waste then you do stuff like this that makes me think you only care about those things when it makes you more money. Like I seriously don't get how Linus can read that ad and not immediately back out. Algorithmically chosen products with algorithmically chosen prices should just scream scam even if you don't know the other issues that generally come with dropshipping.

[Sveeno]

Hey everyone,

 

Thanks for all the comments and concerns about AutoDS. We won’t be working with them in the future.

 

We would like to explain our reasoning as to how this got accepted as a sponsor. While we understand that drop-shipping can have negative connotations, drop-shipping is inherently not a bad model or a scam. It is a way of fulfilling product orders without needing a warehouse to store inventory. AutoDS is a tool that is designed to help find products for your store and help automate the process of fulfilling orders.

 

As for the pricing being different on our link compared to a non-LTT link, I've messaged our contact to resolve this.

 

With that being said, we hear you, we understand, and won't be working with them again.

 

Thanks,

[SorryBella]

4 hours ago, Sveeno said:

While we understand that drop-shipping can have negative connotations, drop-shipping is inherently not a bad model or a scam. It is a way of fulfilling product orders without needing a warehouse to store inventory

I still firmly think theyre a bad thing. They just encourage bad distributor habits of not stocking certain things just because the dropshipper can pick up the slack. Its particularly bad in Indonesia where partial catalogue of Deepcool products are being shipped solely through dropshipper online, which is stupidly fucking annoying, because you have 30 seller of 1 item and dont know each of their fucking fulfillment time.

 

Dropshipping is a regression to the e-commerce industry and they need to be depraved of their clout.

[Elimi]

A complaint for NordVPN (I guess NordPass works the same way). If you want to cancel your account/payment, you have to go to billing, then in the Subscription tab and then click auto-renew to turn it off... Meanwhile, if you go into manage account, nowhere does it link to the said page or even offer an option to cancel my account. Also, no email to warn you of an upcoming bill payment/renewal, better set up a calendar reminder for your 6-month or 2-year plan. But they do send you emails every week to advertise their other plans/products.

 

To top it off the 30-day guarantee only applies to the first period, meaning if you bought a 6-month plan, worked fine the first month and then stopped working correctly after that, no refund for you.

[MigratingCoconut]

This is half a suggestion and half a complaint aimed at not just at one particular company. 

Yesterday GN released a video about the issues with all the closed standards surrounding RGB and sensor communication protocols and cable pinouts of different hardware vendors. s The current situation is one in which older hardware's software gets abandoned, and becomes anywhere from bad to inoperable, while at the same time there can be no communication between hardware from different vendors due to them using different proprietary standards. In the latest WAN show there was a sponsor spot promoting Corsair's ICUE eco-system, one comprised of proprietary hardware and software that cannot work with other vendors' and will most likely die whenever Corsair decides to kill it. 
I don't take issue with Corsair as a sponsor, but rather with sponsoring ICUE and other proprietary RGB ecosystems, and I think LMG can do good by making it a point to only promote such ecosystems that do open their standards and protocols, either via Openpleb, or any other mean.

[IkeaGnome]

33 minutes ago, MigratingCoconut said:

I don't take issue with Corsair as a sponsor, but rather with sponsoring ICUE and other proprietary RGB ecosystems, and I think LMG can do good by making it a point to only promote such ecosystems that do open their standards and protocols, either via Openpleb, or any other mean.

What if I told you that you don't need iCue to control Corsair RGB?

https://signalrgb.com

https://openrgb.org

Personally, I use the paid SignalRGB app.