Gamers Nexus calling out Linus for monetizing on his own controversy

[Stahlmann]

1 hour ago, Shlouski said:

I think comparing linus to artesian builds was unfair, Noah Katz was purposely breaking this own rules and acting scummy. I do think the shirts were in poor taste, but I didn't feel like linus was purposely being malicious. 

He literally laughed at his community members for disagreeing with him because he sold 100 t-shirts for every 1 person who disagreed...

 

Another thing: I find the victim role he pulled by saying "it's kinda heardbreaking that people don't trust me enough" petty. He constantly says "don't trust the corpo's". Not in these words but he brings the same message to his audience.

[Brooksie359]

2 hours ago, shoutingsteve said:

Actually, Amazon is far from heartless.  Despite making so much money that they don't need any more of mine, they have the best and easiest return policy I have ever had to deal with.  Businesses that would otherwise have no way of reaching customers can sell an amazon.  It's not as terrible as people think.  The stories about the working conditions are a bit blown out of proportion: at least here in the Ohio warehouse.  They have plenty of bathrooms and people get fired for plenty of reasons, but almost never for not packing boxes fast enough.

When Jeff bezos pays as much in taxes as someone who makes 80k a year I can't see how they aren't a horrible person. Amazon also steals products designs from the top selling products and creates their own version of the product and also makes its featured and show up higher on the list. I'm sorry but Amazon is not nice and the only reason they have a good return policy is because it makes them more money. You have a good return policy and most people will feel more confident to purchase stuff from your website because worse case scenario you can return it. 

[hysel]

I really feel like LTT is missing a PR Department/Person.

 

Also, I was on the pre-show on floatplane before that show and Linus looked exhausted. I am not trying to justify or protect Linus and I didn't like how this situation was handled, but for me, it looks like Linus is stretched too thin. He mentioned that he is going on vacation, hopefully he will disconnect totally from work and have time to rest.  

 

I also noticed that, while there are a lot of news topics in any given week, the last few WAN shows were moving more and more towards merchandizing and less discussion on the news of the week. 

 

If this continue, at least from my end, I think I will stop watching that show and even cancel my Floatplane plan, which is a shame.

 

Let's hope for a better outcome.

[aisle9]

35 minutes ago, Shlouski said:

@Middcore

 

They both have online stores selling many similar products accounting for  a vast percentage of their incomes,  they are absolutely competitors imo, even though their content differs they react out to a similar and largely overlapping audience. 

Competition in the Youtube space is very different from traditional battle for eyeballs. The same half-hour timeslot only happens once, so if CBS and NBC are airing different shows, you're going to have to pick one. Odds are you're not going to have every streaming service under the sun, and the way those services take your money is by offering better content. Youtube is different. There's no set time that you have to watch, and it doesn't cost you anything, so there's no reason not to watch videos from both. That's part of why you see so many collaborations across different YouTube channels and virtually none across OTA TV channels.

 

In terms of selling merch, yeah, maybe, but LTT is highly dependent upon merchandise sales at this point, and AFAIK it's not GN's main source of revenue. If anything, LTT's dependence upon physical sales makes me really question Linus' decision to antagonize his own customer base, but still...

24 minutes ago, dilpickle said:

Linus is a child

21 minutes ago, Rocketdog2112 said:

Obviously, Linus has lost touch with reality.

lol

[Taf the Ghost]

Having somehow missed this entire drama, the only real issue I can see is that LMG went a little too quickly on the "Monetize the Haters" move before making sure their bases were covered.

 

Here's some harsh realities: the vast majority of the products will be shipped Internationally, with LMG having no presences outside of BC, Canada. That means, as much as there are local laws all over the place, you have no actual way of enforcing them upon LMG. Your warranty, unless you're in the Providence of British Columbia is, very much, "Trust me, bro". 

 

Taken into consideration, Linus has been correct in general on this topic. The issue is, while the proper counter-play is to monetize the haters/drama, you still need to do the proper diligences as a business. What happens when you don't is you give an easy angle for trolls to latch on. There's almost 0 customers that were going to not buy the product from lack of a warranty page.

There's also sub-issue that that counter-play move does necessitate a positional perspective that Linus doesn't really project, so it does come off a little weak in the video clips.

 

Edit: Also, the "Trust me bro" shirts are pretty solid and I'm tempted to get one. Having done enough Tech Support for friends & family, I associate too much with the sentiment, haha

[Ekin]

I find all points made by Steve fair and correct.

In my opinion the laughing during WAN and the TRUST ME BRO t-shirt were in poor taste, but my opinion clearly doesn't matter, because Linus sold additional 100 shirts, so all is good. I got the feeling Linus really doesn’t want to admit to any wrongdoing and doubled down without getting the point. If Linus doesn't even listen to Luke, my hope for a more down to earth consumer oriented Linus is quickly eroding, which would be unfortunate, because I like the idea of Lab32.

Linus has spent years of slowly earning my trust and I hope he can reflect on this before all this trust is lost.

[wanderingfool2]

Yea, he looks at the metrics without trying to figure out what the sentiment was

 

e.g. I was considering purchasing the screwdriver, despite the cost.  I have fully decided not to over this incident.  If I had already put in an order for it, I wouldn't have cancelled the order...but that doesn't mean it doesn't change my future decisions.

 

I don't care if you have been consistent in the past, using that as the "warranty" was just wrong.  The fact is he's used that mentality before, using his "reputation" to explain things.

[AlTech]

3 hours ago, Senzelian said:

The criticism is fair, but I also have to mention that we're talking about Linus and Linus simply does Linus things. I expect controversial responses from him. That's just who he is.

Watching the discussion between Luke and him on WAN show was very uncomfortable, but that's also just part of being human.

 

Their return policy is the same as everyone else in the EU. We're used to a 14 day return policy without being asked any questions and seamless and quick transactions.

Amazon has 30 Day Returns

3 hours ago, Senzelian said:

Their support is utterly worthless compared to many retailers tho and finding their support page or a way of contacting them is not fun at all.

 

And believe me, even if their service would be near perfect, then they're not doing this out of kindness. They're doing it for your money. Often they throw away returned items and take the loss,

Not necessarily true, whilst they throw away some returned items they do sell a ton of returned items at a discounted price. Whether it gets resold or thrown away depends on the customer's reason for returning the item.

 

Customer says item doesn't work -> Item is thrown away.

 

Customer says they changed their mind, it got damaged in shipping, or anything else where it still works -> Item is resold.

 

I say Customer says because Amazon likely doesn't check whether it actually doesn't work or not. They take the customer's word at face value.

3 hours ago, Senzelian said:

creating massive amounts of waste, just so you keep spending your precious money. Anyone that ever worked in retail knows this.

This is true. Amazon knows customers won't buy online from you if they can't return an item they bought from you.

[Shlouski]

36 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

He literally laughed at his community members for disagreeing with him because he sold 100 t-shirts for every 1 person who disagreed...

 Yeah he did that a week later on WAN, again poor taste, but he wasn't screwing people over like Katz. 

 

40 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

Another thing: I find the victim role he pulled by saying "it's kinda heardbreaking that people don't trust me enough" petty. He constantly says "don't trust the corpo's". Not in these words but he brings the same message to his audience.

 

True.

 

He's a walking contradiction, even though he knows it also should apply to him, he also feels like people should trust him because much of his life is shared with the community and thinks of them as friends. 

 

He never seemed to understand the whole warranty situation, and took it as a personal attack.

 

In many ways it's a shame, but he needs to stop thinking his community are his friends and start treating them as clients. 

[Ultraforce]

25 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Amazon has 30 Day Returns

This is true. Amazon knows customers won't buy online from you if they can't return an item they bought from you.

This is why I'm not using Amazon again they banned me, when logging in it said that there would be an email explanation which there wasn't. Trying to login from other regions lead to one of them saying that the reason the account was banned/suspended was suspicious purchases, which admitedly I usually only buy things at cyber monday and Black Friday so fair enough. Although, I had 4 phone calls to try and get my account back and never got the follow-up email that each phone representative promised me and asked me to call back if I didn't receive after 24 hours and ended up having to keep a defective product as a result.

I do plan on calling again and asking to speak to a higher up because after not receiving an email 5 times in a row I kind of think it's maybe irresponsible for them to rely so much on email.

So I will say I think there are major issues with Amazon support and it does seem that even if it takes a long time to get a response, one positive thing with the Creator Warehouse stuff is that they don't have a single playbook that has to always be followed exactly and so if some communication method breaks the customer is screwed.

Edited August 25, 2022 by Ultraforce
Including extra context.

[Rocketdog2112]

1 hour ago, Middcore said:

 

He did, eventually. 

Only after the fact when he realized that $250 WAS going to bite him in the ass.

[Senzelian]

15 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Amazon has 30 Day Returns

Fair enough

 

16 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Not necessarily true, whilst they throw away some returned items they do sell a ton of returned items at a discounted price.

I didn't say they throw all or most of them away. Just said often they throw them away. Isn't that similar enough to "some"?

 

 

19 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Whether it gets resold or thrown away depends on the customer's reason for returning the item.

 

Customer says item doesn't work -> Item is thrown away.

 

Customer says they changed their mind, it got damaged in shipping, or anything else where it still works -> Item is resold.

There's a little more to that. The packaging is also important. The product could be perfectly fine, but might not get resold because the packaging is missing or destroyed. Depending on the damage and the value of the product, some are resold, some are simply thrown away.

 

23 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Amazon knows customers won't buy online from you if they can't return an item they bought from you.

They are also forced by EU law to do that. The additional 16 days they offer is them just doubling down on it, because it doesn't really matter at that point. Give the customer a nice feeling and something to argue for when they choose Amazon instead of a different retailer. There's a lot psychology that goes into convincing customers that their store is better than another and it's funny and scary at the same time how well this works. It goes so far, that I know at least of one person that said: "I don't know of any other online retailers than Amazon" and "Amazon is the only one offering a guaranteed return policy", even tho it's a law. 

[mMontana]

1 hour ago, hysel said:

I really feel like LTT is missing a PR Department/Person.

I really feel then the first 20 PR persons would appear, they could be shortly burnout by some c-person.

 

Edit: at which age Mr Jobs was chewed out from Apple? 

[IPD]

2 hours ago, OSKrueger said:

Referring to an actual incident would have been more appropriate, in my opinion.

I even would have accepted "This behavior is as distasteful as people who dislike pineapple on pizza."

FTFY.

[IPD]

2 hours ago, Gamer Schnitzel said:

GN is a prime example of what the purpose of the internet should have been and how technology should have been used but instead GN is a dying breed, an artifact of an old world and once he is gone there won't be anything like it. Steve goes into absurd amounts of details when reviewing just like people used to back in the day.

I would like to introduce you to the channel called "Project Farm", and the guy who makes GN's testing methods look pedantic.

[IPD]

2 hours ago, Rocketdog2112 said:

When his own employees recognize there's a problem and Linus just laughs it off?

 

Obviously, Linus has lost touch with reality. He can no longer treat his business as the guy next door buying parts online for his buddies. If he is going to promote and sell items with his brand name attached, he better be ready to back those items up with a written policy. A handshake and a "Trust me Bro" is not going to cut it.

 

"I'm not going to let $250 over a backpack tarnish my image?".... When you print up T-shirts mocking the situation guess what... to late, it already has.

Well to be fair, this is the same thing that happened with George Lucas during the making of the Star Wars prequels, and why those turned into absolute garbage.

[wingscancer]

Linus did not want to tarnish their reputation?

They did that immediately when they released that T-shirt.
What's next "BAD TASTE" shirt?

This seems to be an ongoing trend with the company.
Any big enough controversy they get into, they somehow turn it into merchandise/meme.

I’m grateful that they are getting called out on this. I have made multiple purchases on their store, however I will may no longer be purchasing anything else of them.

With the lack of warranty, It was not so much an issue for me. 
I believe they will want to fix any issue that may arise.
So big props to them coming out with a warranty as requested.

What is upsetting to me, is how he downplayed the concerns of this customers.  



   

[xg32]

5 hours ago, Middcore said:

.

i started the ark and oled laptop videos and immediately knew what they were. There are more and more of the ad videos these days, i naturally skip them.

 

On a side note, there's no way the cost of the lab adds up and amounts to profits later on imho, it'll end up like floatplane.

 

Linus does linus things

[wingscancer]

5 hours ago, IPD said:

It would appear that Linus is no longer still "Jenny from the Block".

 

To me, it feels like we've witnessed the birth-to-death of someone who debuted in this tech segment with scratch to speak of--and has over the course of time gotten increasingly further and further removed from the reality of consumers/clients.  It then evolved into a non-stop, hours-long, multi-part segment of MTV-Cribs and all the cool, elite-tier shit that was being done at the behest of the privileged.

 

I have nothing wrong with this latter evolution.  Better homes and gardens has made a fortune from similar segment marketing for decades; show off all the cool shit that you can do--albeit with a tech bent.  But the days of unbiased reporting are dead.  The days of "facts minus bombast" are dead.  It almost feels cringe (sometimes literally does feel cringe) watching Linus review things--when someone else at LTT would or could be doing a much better job.

 

GN is 100% on point here.  And profiteering from the scandal over your own ineptitude--after just putting your foot in your mouth with extreme hyperbole about how blocking youtube ads is like piracy--just underscores how detatched from reality, decency and humility Linus has become.

maybe we can see a return of the keep on digging shirt 

[Jito463]

4 hours ago, venomtail said:

I could care less about Apple

So you do care (at least a little).

 

Sorry, couldn't resist.  

[Middcore]

The entire labs project doesn't really fit the narrative of Linus only being interested in shallow content that maximizes profit.

[Taf the Ghost]

12 minutes ago, wingscancer said:

Linus did not want to tarnish their reputation?

They did that immediately when they released that T-shirt.
What's next "BAD TASTE" shirt?

This seems to be an ongoing trend with the company.
Any big enough controversy they get into, they somehow turn it into merchandise/meme.

I’m grateful that they are getting called out on this. I have made multiple purchases on their store, however I will may no longer be purchasing anything else of them.

With the lack of warranty, It was not so much an issue for me. 
I believe they will want to fix any issue that may arise.
So big props to them coming out with a warranty as requested.

What is upsetting to me, is how he downplayed the concerns of this customers.  
   

On the bolded bit, it's just good online business practice. Very, very little social media strife has real stakes. It's drama & trolling for drama & trolling's sake. Which means it's an opportunity to counter-market against it. It works time & again. It will continue to keep working.

 

The exception is when you miss that there is a real issue at play. In this case, after LMG puts out a "proper" warranty, their stated one is now worse than "Trust Me, Bro". I think a bunch of people in a lot of this discussion needs to slap themselves across the face for being stupid.  Linus' mistake was not being clear to his audience about the actual reality of warranties in general, especially with International Shipping. Unless you're in Australia, they're always incredibly weak and you are trusting the company's promises. And, in nearly all jurisdictions, they can deny a warranty claim at will and there's little one can do about it.

[wingscancer]

27 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

On the bolded bit, it's just good online business practice. Very, very little social media strife has real stakes. It's drama & trolling for drama & trolling's sake. Which means it's an opportunity to counter-market against it. It works time & again. It will continue to keep working.

 

The exception is when you miss that there is a real issue at play. In this case, after LMG puts out a "proper" warranty, their stated one is now worse than "Trust Me, Bro". I think a bunch of people in a lot of this discussion needs to slap themselves across the face for being stupid.  Linus' mistake was not being clear to his audience about the actual reality of warranties in general, especially with International Shipping. Unless you're in Australia, they're always incredibly weak and you are trusting the company's promises. And, in nearly all jurisdictions, they can deny a warranty claim at will and there's little one can do about it.

i am from Australia :3 great to have strong return policy out side of warranty 

yer its blown up more than what it should.

im sure it will fizzle out.

 

 

[Harvey-Specter]

45 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

Linus' mistake was not being clear to his audience about the actual reality of warranties in general, especially with International Shipping. Unless you're in Australia, they're always incredibly weak and you are trusting the company's promises. And, in nearly all jurisdictions, they can deny a warranty claim at will and there's little one can do about it.

I think he was pretty clear about the realities of warranties... He talked about how they're always worded in such a way that the company has a lot of flexibility to deny claims for basically any reason. He talked about how it essentially comes down to "the will of the company" and that he "has a lot of will" to take care of customers.

 

I used to work in an electronics store and had to manage contacting manufacturers on behalf of customers to get warranty repairs/replacements done, I've seen first hand how little a warranty means. This whole saga has really opened my eyes to how little the average person knows about how these things work. People are acting like a warranty is a magic pinky promise that guarantees that a company will "do the right thing".

[Lestat21]

Linus does not see himself as a "company". That's his biggest mistake. He thinks he's our friend and we can trust him, then turns around and says never to trust any company, they're not your friends and only care about money.

 

You will never get Linus to admit wrong doing. Even when he apologizes, he weasels himself out and blurts out a "sorry you didn't understand what I meant" instead of saying he was wrong.