Gamers Nexus calling out Linus for monetizing on his own controversy

[divito]

Don't really have a dog in the fight; I watch GN, LMG, L1, etc... but I really have to say that while I appreciated GN being an enthusiast-level perspective and calling things as they saw them in the past, they're really starting to get pedantic and I can't take them seriously anymore. Comes off as disingenuous and holier-than-thou and I don't have the patience or time for that type of attitude.

[Skipple]

Few criticisms from what I though was an overall fair video: 

 

1) IIRC, the "Trust Me Bro" T-Shirt was unveiled in the same WAN show that Linus committed to a written warranty and announced that one would be coming shortly. From what I can see, this wasn't the way it was presented in GN's video. Steve made it sound like Linus mocked the community by unveiling the T-Shirt and, only after that, committed to a warranty. This wasn't the timeline of events.

 

2) In my opinion, Steve didn't cover Linus' points, whatsoever. Linus, while communicating it poorly, essentially said that a warranty doesn't really mean anything because companies will weasel their way out of covering something, even if there is a written warranty. LMG would go out of their way to make things right, above and beyond what a written warranty stated, regardless, so a written warranty wasn't necessary. While that's certainly arguable, and I completely understand why one would want a written warranty on a premium product, I don't think Steve even touched Linus' point of view here, which is disappointing. 

 

3) I'm having trouble separating this: GN claims they want to cover LMG just like any other tech company. That's all well and good. But... LMG isn't a tech manufacturer. They have never produced a product close to, or anything to do with a computer component. (unless you consider a mousepad a PC component) The only reason GN is covering the story is because LTT is a competitor / friend / colleague. If LMG is simply another corporate entity, then why are you covering this topic at all? You don't cover apparel products. The only reason it's being covered is because they are close to you.

[Ultraforce]

1 hour ago, OrdinaryPhil said:

They don't have to announce "hey we're talking about ethics and morality now!". The topic makes it unavoidable. Steve outright side he disapproved of Linus' actions, and that is why he no longer wants to treat him "like a friend" and instead like "other large companies". There is no way to frame that as anything other than a moral judgement, which Steve himself is in no position to make. At best it smacks of hypocrisy, and at worst it looks like Steve being petty about what he sees as "the competition".

At least from the way I interpreted it, Steve will treat Linus like a friend but when discussing news related to LMG/Creator Warehouse/Floatplane(since while he says friends at LTT of course corporately it's not all LTT) they will be treated professionally like any other mid/large company(I'd say mid-size rather than large but perhaps for this kind of tech related stuff the combination of companies is quite large.) rather than just as a side project by one of Steve's friends. I'll be honest personally I think when talking about each other's reporting and publicly outside of conventions I think most tech YouTube channels should treat the others as normal competing businesses and not have their personal friendship interfere with business discussions.

 

 

1 hour ago, OrdinaryPhil said:

Boy allegory is really a dead art.

I will admit I am not particularly skilled at allegory or metaphor so I just tried to come up with something I could imagine as an example.
 

 

1 hour ago, OrdinaryPhil said:

Firstly, there is no such thing as "high end" in either of their marketplaces. They are selling t-shirts and desk mats. I don't mean that in a derogatory manner, just pointing out that the whole of that market is all cheaply produced. You can buy cotton shirts in bulk for $6 a pop from most textile manufacturers and printing is a very inexpensive process. There are half a dozen "custom shirt printing" stores within 5 miles of me in my small mid-western town and I can both buy a shirt in generic S-M-L sizes and print whatever I want on it for $12. The markup on these items is HUGE.

For even a medium-quality item it needs to be at least tailored to my measurements, not some "off-the-rack" size. And even those shirts are like... what, $25. Hell AMAZON is now doing custom tailored shirts for $25. I think it's under the "made for you" brand name.

To be a "high end" shirt would mean it is both custom tailored to your exact measurements, and is made of premium materials, not ployester-blends that wear like a sweaty trash bag

I guess I felt high-end would be the best term for something like a $50 set of screwdrivers and 80/100 dollar antistatic build surface since I'll be completely honest I don't know what is normal for expenses within hardware or computer hobbies. Hobbies I'm used to in terms of prices are book reading, video games, and manga.

So from that perspective I felt that high end is a good way of describing their screwdrivers since I'm used to the whole $20 Canadian Tire type of deal and instead prices you might see at Lee Valley. For anti-static mats I have no clue what is a normal price but $100 USD seems like quite a bit and even $80. Similarly, $250 USD for a backpack is quite a bit of money, even if it might not be the most expensive backpack one can buy.

[aisle9]

4 hours ago, Ultraforce said:

The discussion is calling out in relationship to warranty. A hired killer could call out another hired killer for saying hey if you are paid to kill someone you should make sure the death isn't traced to your client, you failed to do this once, so now I will guarantee that for the 5 years after the death I will do my best to keep you from being convicted of calling the hit as long as you follow the contract about your role.

aaaaaaand this conversation has jumped the shark

[LinusTech]

9 hours ago, Harvey-Specter said:

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".

We have a lot of will do the right thing. 

 

We will make some mistakes along the way. We are going through some growing pains, but we always strive to improve. 

 

Maybe some folks will need to see another 6 months of what we have planned to come back on board. Maybe it'll take a year. Or 5.

 

Our world class team will keep improving in that time and when (if) they come back, we will be ready to impress. 

 

I wish we were ready to show more of what's going on in the lab... Some stuff we can talk about, but a lot of it is still in that "not very visually interesting" stage where its hard to make videos about it. 

 

In due time. 

[DeerDK]

1 hour ago, LinusTech said:

We have a lot of will do the right thing. 

 

We will make some mistakes along the way. We are going through some growing pains, but we always strive to improve. 

 

Maybe some folks will need to see another 6 months of what we have planned to come back on board. Maybe it'll take a year. Or 5.

 

Our world class team will keep improving in that time and when (if) they come back, we will be ready to impress. 

 

I wish we were ready to show more of what's going on in the lab... Some stuff we can talk about, but a lot of it is still in that "not very visually interesting" stage where its hard to make videos about it. 

 

In due time. 

I look really forward to the lab. Especially noise testing. 

 

In regards to the other whole ordeal. Well, some missteps were made, but as i wrote elsewhere, i don't attribute it to malice. A bit poor judgment, but that happens to us all, especially live. Good that you have Luke

I look forward to WAN as always, although i can't watch live due to the time difference. 

Have a good weekend. 

[Blue4130]

1 hour ago, LinusTech said:

We have a lot of will do the right thing. 

 

We will make some mistakes along the way. We are going through some growing pains, but we always strive to improve. 

 

Maybe some folks will need to see another 6 months of what we have planned to come back on board. Maybe it'll take a year. Or 5.

 

Our world class team will keep improving in that time and when (if) they come back, we will be ready to impress. 

 

I wish we were ready to show more of what's going on in the lab... Some stuff we can talk about, but a lot of it is still in that "not very visually interesting" stage where its hard to make videos about it. 

 

In due time. 

I will second what @DeerDKsaid below. Thank God for luke. Please @LinusTechtry to let Luke talk more. You have a habit of stepping all over his words when he tries to contribute

[LinusTech]

54 minutes ago, DeerDK said:

I look really forward to the lab. Especially noise testing. 

 

In regards to the other whole ordeal. Well, some missteps were made, but as i wrote elsewhere, i don't attribute it to malice. A bit poor judgment, but that happens to us all, especially live. Good that you have Luke

I look forward to WAN as always, although i can't watch live due to the time difference. 

Have a good weekend. 

Luke is 1/100,000,000. 

 

And the rest of the team is incredible too. We are over 80 strong at this point and while it might be a meme, I mean it when I say they are world class.

 

This is just the beginning. 

[DeerDK]

47 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

Luke is 1/100,000,000. 

 

And the rest of the team is incredible too. We are over 80 strong at this point and while it might be a meme, I mean it when I say they are world class.

 

This is just the beginning. 

I believe you. There is a general feeling of passion. Could be fun to work in such a creative environment, but I've got the "wrong" technical background and live 9 time zones away xD

 

Anyway - props to the team

[Neroon]

2 hours ago, LinusTech said:

We have a lot of will do the right thing. 

 

We will make some mistakes along the way. We are going through some growing pains, but we always strive to improve. 

 

Maybe some folks will need to see another 6 months of what we have planned to come back on board. Maybe it'll take a year. Or 5.

 

Our world class team will keep improving in that time and when (if) they come back, we will be ready to impress. 

 

I wish we were ready to show more of what's going on in the lab... Some stuff we can talk about, but a lot of it is still in that "not very visually interesting" stage where its hard to make videos about it. 

 

In due time. 

Personally I trust that you guys will offer great content and information, I also trust the support you guys offer for your product. But offering the t-shirt before finalizing the warranty, is a slap in the face for the people who voiced their concern about said warranty.

 

I get it, the t-shirt sold well, and I get it, LTT is about doubling down on the memes. But this was a problem first. You should have fixed the problem first, meme about it after.

 

When you consider that the warranty request wasn't taken (very) seriously from the get go, at least you could have waited now. And that's what Steve was about, and more importantly, what Luke was about. You are right to say he and your team is fantastic, so use them, get their opinion, Luke constantly correcting you and commenting what he thinks of your decisions, is bad. Yes I'm glad you got a workplace going where people can openly disagree with you, the video about the power supply tester is another testament to that, but it would be better to get his and others opinion beforehand and not put yourself, him and the audience in that position. Spicy is fine, full disagreement on a controversial topic surrounding your own business, is just not smart.

[Stahlmann]

5 hours ago, Skipple said:

1) IIRC, the "Trust Me Bro" T-Shirt was unveiled in the same WAN show that Linus committed to a written warranty and announced that one would be coming shortly. From what I can see, this wasn't the way it was presented in GN's video. Steve made it sound like Linus mocked the community by unveiling the T-Shirt and, only after that, committed to a warranty. This wasn't the timeline of events.

The shirt was done at the same time as the warranty itself. If the project started or finished 1 or 2 days sooner or later doesn't really matter. The fact that a serious problem was memed about before it really was resolved was the issue.

 

Still, even doing the shirt later is just unneccesarily rubbing salt in a wound.

 

@LinusTech

You said it's not worth it to risk your and LTT's reputation for the sake of a $250 product. Still, selling these shirts is exactly that imo: Damaging your and LTT's reputation for a lot of people including long-term fans and supporters for short-term profits.

 

Frankly, I don't want to see the world (or LTT) burn and i know you probably get this a lot, but this could've been handled a lot better. A good start would be to orient yourself more on Luke's behavior as he seems to have a better sense of what to say and not to say when talking about a controversy. I cannot remember the last time Luke said anything that blew up in his face. And if something does blow up, it's probably better to create a well-worded post (for example a forum thread) and talk about it with your community than to throw out defensive tweets that ultimately make it worse. Twitter is just not the right place to try and find understanding people that have some common sense, so settling any dispute is an uphill battle from the start over there.

[Rex Hite]

Is this a 'bro' thing?

I'm not a regular viewer but from the video thumbnails maybe it has something to do with wearing his hat backwards. Maybe obnoxiousness and expense- bragging is just a strategy and he's not really a douche, he just plays one on TV. He knows his audience.

[mMontana]

Why "answer" critics with marketing claims out of topic?

[Ultraforce]

8 hours ago, aisle9 said:

aaaaaaand this conversation has jumped the shark

I'm bad at metaphors, the person was talking about morality as being important so I was like what's a concept where it could be understandable that competitors that sell a product or service which would be inherently considered amoral. Ah! hired killers like the old ace attorney game where a killer threatens you to prove his client innocent.

[spartaman64]

On 8/25/2022 at 8:11 AM, 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.

thats because it doesnt cost them money. they take that money from the 3rd party sellers most of the time. 

[Skipple]

5 hours ago, Stahlmann said:

The shirt was done at the same time as the warranty itself. If the project started or finished 1 or 2 days sooner or later doesn't really matter. The fact that a serious problem was memed about before it really was resolved was the issue.

 

Still, even doing the shirt later is just unneccesarily rubbing salt in a wound.

The fact that it "doesn't matter" is subjective. I think it does. That's fine.

 

Regardless of your opinion, the way it was presented by GN was inaccurate. 

[OrdinaryPhil]

8 hours ago, LinusTech said:

Luke is 1/100,000,000. 

 

And the rest of the team is incredible too. We are over 80 strong at this point and while it might be a meme, I mean it when I say they are world class.

 

This is just the beginning. 

Luke is great, but together the two of you are something special.

Real, genuine friendship is sadly quite rare. There is a reason why seeing it is so magical. I'm not saying that the two of you are like Turk & JD, or Shawn & Gus, but you definitely have something great and it's good to see!

Frankly I'd like more content with the two of you. Awesome chemistry.

[xg32]

14 hours ago, divito said:

Don't really have a dog in the fight; I watch GN, LMG, L1, etc... but I really have to say that while I appreciated GN being an enthusiast-level perspective and calling things as they saw them in the past, they're really starting to get pedantic and I can't take them seriously anymore. Comes off as disingenuous and holier-than-thou and I don't have the patience or time for that type of attitude.

anything covering consumer rights in the US tends to go from righteous to annoying really quickly, somewhere in the middle it'll be compared to EU laws (but the US doesn't really want it). Steve might be overplaying his hand, we'll see(the fire case, exploding psu, newegg were all fine)

 

Not everyone's gonna get their warranty in the US, it's a balance of how many does and how many gets screwed, and that's just the reality of it. This entire ordeal was blown out of proportion

[GameRetro]

I would say that the last 2 replies here were pretty "tame" and generic implying they went through some form of a filter/PR. While they didn't seem to address anything discussed here at all, I think it's a step in the right direction towards understanding when there might be a potential issue of just blurting something out and maybe considering the underlying narrative of why and how it (the discussion at hand) matters.

[LinusTech]

2 hours ago, GameRetro said:

I would say that the last 2 replies here were pretty "tame" and generic implying they went through some form of a filter/PR. While they didn't seem to address anything discussed here at all, I think it's a step in the right direction towards understanding when there might be a potential issue of just blurting something out and maybe considering the underlying narrative of why and how it (the discussion at hand) matters.

Nope I wrote them. 

[NephtisSeibzehn]

I thik it's great that GN will take the stance they have announced. Just because the owner of x company is your friend, it shouldn't mean that you're going to use kid gloves for their product reviews. To do so is a disservice to them, to the company product they're reviewing, and to their audience. Give praise when it's due, and call them out when needed. Whether the owner of the company will pay any heed to the criticisms it's up to them - if they want their reputation tarnished because of some childish BS, let them. It's up to their audience / customer base whether that shit will fly or not. All GN can do is report on the facts.

 

You can still be friends as long as both sides understand where the line is drawn as far as business is concerned.

 

 

[kpluck]

On 8/25/2022 at 6:19 AM, IPD said:

And then there's Bezos, who wanted to demolish a 500 year old bridge for his mega yacht.

LOL…you really demolished all your credibility with that statement.

[Sarra]

I think this thread has reached the "OW! My knees!" point now...

 

The only thing I really have to say, after watching the WAN Show for the last few weeks, and Steve's video, is this:

 

Linus, I hope you learn from this, going forward. As Jay, Steve, and lots of the LMG hosts have said in the past, you need to do better.

 

And ploz, let's get some hardware reviews, hardware suggestions, and hardware shootout videos again. I want to buy stuff, but I don't know what to buy... (I mean, I really do, I just want the content, man...)

[suits]

On 8/25/2022 at 8:51 AM, Stahlmann said:

Now he's shown that it's not just LTT who doesn't care about their community, but also their CEO who prefers T-shirt sales over a good relationship with his own community.

 

Maybe a bit of an over reaction considering their history of customer service lol. 

[Barking Platypus]

22 hours ago, LinusTech said:

We have a lot of will do the right thing. 

 

We will make some mistakes along the way. We are going through some growing pains, but we always strive to improve. 

 

Maybe some folks will need to see another 6 months of what we have planned to come back on board. Maybe it'll take a year. Or 5.

I think the problem that a lot of people have with this situation is not necessarily the warranty issue or mistakes your team has made but rather the personal insult that you had a hand in creating and approving. I am someone who likes the work you put out and have been watching your content for a very long time and generally speaking agree with your takes on a lot of issues, but I am in a position where I don't think your team made a big mistake, rather I think that you as an individual took the time to rub salt in the wound of some of your more dedicated customers including me. I understand that you already addressed this issue when you made the shirt but I was hoping that after having time to hear the communities response think about the issue further, you would readdress the decision to make the "trust me bro" shirt and let us know if you think it was in bad taste or if you still think this was an appropriate and funny joke.