Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[MotherboardsInThePark]

Just now, Ottoman420 said:

Yeah i agree the waterblockgate is bad and worst of these allegations but again to say he is a BAD PERSON or these were intentional or pre-meditated is going too far imo.

 

More neglegent

The fact is: We don't know how the waterblock situation was handled and by who. We only know how it was resolved, and that resolution plus the very poor response to the GN video speak volumes about Linus' character.

[maplepants]

10 minutes ago, bandainamcofan said:

If the facts were wrong then it should be simple to point out where they were wrong. You are ascribing a motive to GN as if it were fact that you can't possibly verify while claiming GN didn't verify facts.

My dude, it's bog standard YouTube drama. Just like the backpack drama, or the time he filmed himself pointlessly standing in front of the Artesian offices. Or when he milked that NewEgg story for ages, even going to their office for the most "this could have been an e-mail" meeting I've ever seen somebody film.

 

GN makes good videos about PC hardware, but they also make loads of drama videos. This just happens to be one of their drama videos.

[GameFox]

I just created an account to respond. Hello everyone! 

I am a long time watcher of LTT and honestly I understand that mistakes happen, especially with daily uploads. It is hard to maintain a channel that is without error, especially ones this big. Likewise, I have always enjoyed Linus's goofy personality and humor.

However, I am perplexed by Linus's response to these seemingly obvious errors. He seems to act in an arrogant manner through pointing the finger at everyone but himself. I honestly think that he needs to talk about it on WAN show and address each criticism as a professional, rather than someone who sounds and writes as though they are irritated.

This situation leaves a bad taste in my mouth, so I truly hope it gets addressed and things move in a positive direction as someone who loves LTT's content. 

[filpo]

This old vid really portrays the stress and work that goes into making one vid a day and they should be given credit to that but if it makes them make mistakes and scandals like this then I'd love for them to slow down and take more breaks

Heck, even for smaller channels like techlinked it's still stressful

 

2 minutes ago, GameFox said:

without error

problem is in that some cases it can be intentional, unfortunately 

 

2 minutes ago, GameFox said:

arrogant manner through pointing the finger at everyone but himsel

remember, Linus isn't the bad guy, though he's starting to make himself look like one

 

3 minutes ago, GameFox said:

I honestly think that he needs to talk about it on WAN show and address each criticism as a professional, rather than someone who sounds and writes as though they are irritated.

check the recommended post at the top and unfortunately, it doesn't seem like they will, though they should

[DeerDK]

3 minutes ago, Reclus said:

No they don't. Not only that they don't, it would jeopardise their integrity by allowing LTT to just brush it under the carpet. And judging by LTT's reaction to this vid they were absolutely right not to do it. The video, the WAN show after and the  LTX auction literally show how lost LTT is on this issue.  LTT is a corpo entity now worth 100 mil which they constantly repeat in their videos, which is a good thing as a sign of being proud of their achievements. But when faced with a problem of their own making on which they have doubled up on later in full view of the public in a really poor arrogant way, they act like they are a small youtuber, so you shouldn't really look into it because it might hurt them and their bottom line - which you know they need because of all the equipment they bought. You can't buy integrity. And any attempts at it are quickly recognised by the people that watch you. 

You are deflecting. Nothing else but deflecting. And this type of behaviour will really hurt LTT if it won't be addressed correctly. A decade of fun passionate videos will go down the drain because they aren't treating this issue with the respect it deserves and literally started to throw money at the problem and using the terms like "trust me bro?!?!" Where Trust is the main component of that sentence!

I am here like many others - signed up just to see how LTT will fix this problem. Instead I was met with - no discussion will be held, money will be thrown, journalists are bad and I don't care. And the absolute fanboying on the forum is really just making it worse. You are defending what Linus would absolutely describe as irresponsible corporate behaviour just a few years ago.

Since I don't engage with people over being dissapointed or angry, I do a very poor job of deflecting. Heck, I even agree with most of that. 

But when people say that a journalistic outlet doesn't have to reach out for comment before releasing a piece like this I disagree. GN wants to conduct journalism. Good. Let them. But don't call me a fanboi for then saying that not reaching out for comment wasn't good journalistic conduct. I haven't said anything about that invalidating their piece. I haven't engaged with anyone for saying that. 

[Bograt]

11 minutes ago, Ottoman420 said:

No need for this,

 

Nobody thinks Linus is doing this because he is a bad person, Its more about checks and balances and Linus has shown plenty of times he is willing to be transparent about stuff like this and try be better.

 

But its also continued situations like these that can make Linus decide to give up on being transparent its a tough line to walk from his perspective to be honest.

Are you under the impression that refusing to take responsibility for your actions, denying your actions and maliciously hurting small businesses, among other things, makes someone a good person?
Are you under the impression that being called out for doing bad things is a valid reason to drop transparency and to double down and to gaslight?

[yidifo3313]

Also the fact that this horrible excuse of human decides to pay Billet after the GN video to cover their unique prototype is shocking, because that was a one of a kind prototype that was supposed to be used in their production line, now it is gone, and no money can ever replace it, i am talking about the value of the material itself. The payment for it's theft requires to be triple because they have to start from almost 0 into making a new one, they have the R&D the CAD drawings but their physical prototype is gone and they need the triple amount of money in order to start again! Not to mention that the time they spend into machining has been lost, so they have their manufacturing timeline messed up as well thanks to Linus and LTT team, Also man hours need to be payed, Linus screwed 2 poor blokes who trusted him a product in hopes that they could sell it someday, and the team at LTT even messed up the testing initially!

[TheProfosist]

17 minutes ago, Polderviking said:

I feel a lot of that is adressed by GN can be solved by slowing down a bit.

Surely there's wiggle room for more time in QA even if the amount of video's are dialed back?

 

Everybody on earth is subscribed to MrBeast it seems like, they only do one a week or so?

pretty sure its been mentions on WAN Show that they may go away from daily uploads. In that context it was more talked about in the way of running out of content to make people will actually watch rather than slowing it down for quality. That would be a side benefit though.

[Ottoman420]

Just now, Bograt said:

Are you under the impression that refusing to take responsibility for your actions, denying your actions and maliciously hurting small businesses, among other things, makes someone a good person?
Are you under the impression that being called out for doing bad things is a valid reason to drop transparency and to double down and to gaslight?

Im saying thats what could happen and does happen by other large/larger buisnesses.

[CoolGoose]

18 minutes ago, Dom1252 said:

you're claiming LMG didn't post a single laptop video since then? 

I mean, Linus pretends they have new CEO, but even here the statements are from Linus, not CEO, so Linus clearly (I mean, he and his wife are owners of the company) run the company 

every laptop review (or unboxing or whatever) made by LMG is to be treated as if Linus did it personally 

Considering Alex does a lot of Laptop reviews, and in general they barely cover 'reparability' and he loves Dell XPS I am not sure how LMG as a company is biasing Framework laptops.

[bandainamcofan]

3 minutes ago, DeerDK said:

But when people say that a journalistic outlet doesn't have to reach out for comment before releasing a piece like this I disagree. GN wants to conduct journalism. Good. Let them. But don't call me a fanboi for then saying that not reaching out for comment wasn't good journalistic conduct.

Once again, an ethics board explicitly disagrees with the idea that you always have to reach out for comment.

[filpo]

Just now, Bograt said:

makes someone a good person?

@Ottoman420 is saying he isn't a bad person. Anyways, you don't know the whole story. Not even GN does. LMG does since that's where the employees are but we're just forum members not in touch with anyone on the team

 

2 minutes ago, Bograt said:

valid reason to drop transparency and to double down and to gaslight?

he may be doing this to protect someone. If he's doing it for his reputation then it's wrong but i like to think he isn't

[Polderviking]

8 minutes ago, filpo said:

I would be sad if they stopped 1 video a day but clearly they have to so if it goes down to 2 or 3 LTT vids a week but they're higher quality then that would be preferred over quantity

Yeah one a week for a broad tech channel would probably be insufficient, but I get why GN sampled that "what's it's like working for ltt" video because if everybody asks for more breathing room in their workflow you've got a workload problem and are too much on the ragged edge of what you can put out.

[Jeppes]

56 minutes ago, FUTDomi said:

 

The whole video is simply revenge over that comment; the fact that he didn't contact them to explain their side of the story regarding the Billet Labs thing says a lot. Or how he throws baseless accuasions like conflict of interests with the Frameworks deal when he knows he doesn't review laptops + they fully disclosed the deal so people were aware of it, or the also baseless accusations about favoritism with Noctua over a stupid mistake, etc.

 

Like, if he is going to play this game, he can also explain us if it was a coincidence when Jay2cents trying to influence people to buy EVGA 3090ti's when they were absolutely overpriced while both Jay and him had the "exclusive" of EVGA leaving Nvidia... he wasn't so worried about "protecting the millions of followers over misinformation".

 

But audience manipulation is easy, and he knows that using tricks like that or announcing that you're not monetizing the video do wonders.

LTT cooler reviews have been quite horrible for years. I think they are one of the major tubers pushing less informed people buying Noctua over a competitor offering same perfomance for 1/3 of the price like it is with U12S. Would love to see a blind test where the staff tries to hear a difference between Arctic p12 max and the LTT hyped Noctua F12

[Alex T88]

10 minutes ago, maplepants said:

GN makes good videos about PC hardware, but they also make loads of drama videos. This just happens to be one of their drama videos.

Without drama you can't raise awareness. And much of the drama is due to people, the viewers who position themselves on one side or the other. As far as I saw, there was nothing dramatic in GN's video. Of course GN stands to win, much more than some would think, by making a video and not just sending an email. Transparency never hurt anybody, except those who try to hide facts and to mislead people. Ultimately, the end user/viewer stands to win, hopefully.

[Reclus]

16 minutes ago, FUTDomi said:

 

Yes, I am claiming that. He did what he had to do: disclose with detail his (personal) deal, and step away and let others review laptops.

 

Saying there is a conflict of interests here is simply laughable.

You obviously missed this.. Go to page58. You argument is unfortunately dead in the water. He has made reviews of other laptops since. Of course it then devolves into: what is a review? what is a laptop? he reads the script only! etc... etc... You are not helping here. You are making it worse.

[Bograt]

3 minutes ago, DeerDK said:

Since I don't engage with people over being dissapointed or angry, I do a very poor job of deflecting. Heck, I even agree with most of that. 

But when people say that a journalistic outlet doesn't have to reach out for comment before releasing a piece like this I disagree. GN wants to conduct journalism. Good. Let them. But don't call me a fanboi for then saying that not reaching out for comment wasn't good journalistic conduct. I haven't said anything about that invalidating their piece. I haven't engaged with anyone for saying that. 

This is completely devoid of sense.
A journalistic outlet does not need to reach out for comment from a repeated aggressor for the aggressor's opinion. They need only search for and verify the facts and then report on said facts.
GN did this.
You claiming that GN is committing poor journalistic conduct is both a non sequitur and it is blaming the wrong company as they have proven that they have done excellent journalism and are calling out LMG failing to do good journalism.
You are proving the "fanboi" insult you are complaining about to be an accurate label with your nonsense.

[Dom1252]

5 minutes ago, CoolGoose said:

Considering Alex does a lot of Laptop reviews, and in general they barely cover 'reparability' and he loves Dell XPS I am not sure how LMG as a company is biasing Framework laptops.

I don't claim they are biased, but they should be treated as "from a company that would benefit from misleading reviews" 

I do trust Alex (more than Linus) that he does a decent job, but still, Linus would benefit from bad reviews of anything but framework, and as long as he runs the company, people should be made aware of that in every video very clearly 

[Bograt]

5 minutes ago, Ottoman420 said:

Im saying thats what could happen and does happen by other large/larger buisnesses.

That is not what you said.

[CH23]

  I understand that it's easy for me to sit here in complete anonimity, and be one of the many people who reply to this, but please understand that I don't do it out of anger or another form of negativity. I hope my criticism can be read in a constructive way. I want LTT/LMG (and you, Linus) to succeed and overcome these hurdles.

 

12 hours ago, LinusTech said:

There won't be a big WAN Show segment about this or anything. Most of what I have to say, I've already said, and I've done so privately.

I don't believe saying things privately when it concerns the publicly watchable LMG channels, is the right way to do any of this. Setting aside who criticised the data, this is a problem with the actual data that LMG sends out into the world.

 

 

12 hours ago, LinusTech said:

To Steve, I expressed my disappointment that he didn't go through proper journalistic practices in creating this piece. He has my email and number (along with numerous other members of our team) and could have asked me for context that may have proven to be valuable (like the fact that we didn't 'sell' the monoblock, but rather auctioned it for charity due to a miscommunication... AND the fact that while we haven't sent payment yet, we have already agreed to compensate Billet Labs for the cost of their prototype).

While I do agree that it would have been professional of Steve to contact LMG, the issue with the monoblock is not the phrasing of 'selling' versus 'auctioning', but that a piece of equipment that was lent to LMG, not owned by LMG is sold, is what's problematic. Compensation after tearing down(in words, not physically), mistesting, and then selling their prototype will not restore the damage done to their company. I feel like you're not understanding the spirit of the problem.

 

12 hours ago, LinusTech said:

To my team (and my CEO's team, but realistically I was at the helm for all of these errors, so I need to own it), I stressed the importance of diligence in our work because there are so many eyes on us. We are going through some growing pains - we've been very public about them in the interest of transparency - and it's clear we have some work to do on internal processes and communication. We have already been doing a lot of work internally to clean up our processes, but these things take time. Rome wasn't built in a day, but that's no excuse for sloppiness.

From what I'm seeing in the videos, the interviews with people internally, and WAN shows, the need to release videos is set higher than making certain those videos are doublechecked for these kind of errors/mistakes. If you want to be entertaining, then be entertaining. you want to present factual information, then take the time to doublecheck the facts. if you don't allow for this time, then you're setting yourself (LTT) up for faillure.

 

12 hours ago, LinusTech said:

Do we have notes under some videos? Yes. Is it because we are striving for transparency/improvement? Yeah... What we're doing hasn't been in many years, if ever.. and we would make a much larger correction if the circumstances merited it. Listing the wrong amount of cache on a table for a CPU review is sloppy, but given that our conclusions are drawn based on our testing, not the spec sheet, it doesn't materially change the recommendation. That doesn't mean these things don't matter. We've set KPIs for our writing/labs team around accuracy, and we are continually installing new checks and balances to ensure that things continue to get better.

You've been in the youtube business long enough to know that anything that's not in the video itself, may as well not exist. As you've mentioned before, you don't watch the videos but read the replies underneath (something I find highly questionable as you form opinions on other peoples opinions instead of doing so from the actual video) and I believe that to be a highly unique way of interacting with the platform. Most people won't even read the (by default collapsed) info blurb below a video.

 

12 hours ago, LinusTech said:

With all of that said, I still disagree that the Billet Labs video (not the situation with the return, which I've already addressed above) is an 'accuracy' issue. It's more like I just read the room wrong. We COULD have re-tested it with perfect accuracy, but to do so PROPERLY - accounting for which cases it could be installed in (none) and which radiators it would be plumbed with (again... mystery) would have been impossible... and also didn't affect the conclusion of the video... OR SO I THOUGHT...

 

If this had been done with the LTT Screwdriver prototype, where the 3D printed body was judged as final, or it had been used for heavy duty stuff and didn't function as well, would you have agreed with the conclusion that it was a rough product not fit for use, or defended it as being a prototype and used in a wrong way?

 

On the one hand you're building a lab for precise and unbiased results, but then you use a prototype block with the wrong GPU, and become unwilling to test it in the way it was meant. that's not great.

 

12 hours ago, LinusTech said:

Either way, I'm sorry I got the community's priorities mixed-up on this one, and that we didn't show the Billet in the best light. Our intention wasn't to hurt anyone. We wanted no one to buy it (because it's an egregious waste of money no matter what temps it runs at) and we wanted Billet to make something marketable (so they can, y'know, eat).

 

No matter how good your intentions, if the result doesn't align, then that is on you. There were many ways to better go about this, but I feel that once again there simply was no time (given!) to do so.

 

12 hours ago, LinusTech said:

Let's see if anyone actually wants to know what happened. I hope so, but it's been disheartening seeing how many people were willing to jump on us here. Believe it or not, I'm a real person and so is the rest of my team. We are trying our best, and if what we were doing was easy, everyone would do it. Today sucks.

 

Thanks for reading this.

 

Of course people want to know the ins and outs of this, but as you said, you've discussed it privately and want to keep it at that. You are a real person, but Linus Tech Tips, Linus Media Group, are corporate entities. I think you may too easily dismiss things because you misinterpret how people perceive the things that happened, or what the core of an issue is. I'm not a hater. I have some of the products your company makes, and they're good. I (religiously) watch the WAN show because I love learning about the inner workings of a company like yours, because of the personalities therein.  I even made an account to write this message, because I care, and because I believe that there is no malice at all.

-CH23

[filpo]

1 minute ago, Bograt said:

A journalistic outlet does not need to reach out for comment from a repeated aggressor for the aggressor's opinion. They need only search for and verify the facts and then report on said facts.
GN did this.

@DeerDK was saying exactly that

 

2 minutes ago, Bograt said:

ou claiming that GN is committing poor journalistic conduct is both a non sequitur and it is blaming the wrong company as they have proven that they have done excellent journalism and are calling out LMG failing to do good journalism.

Wow people are getting really involved in a thing that only two people should worry about. Linus and Steve

 

2 minutes ago, Bograt said:

You are proving the "fanboi" insult you are complaining about to be an accurate label with your nonsense.

being in favour of a side doesn't mean your a fanboi. Just means you agree with them. I agree with Linus's statements somewhat, but in other cases, GN's too

[thebakerman]

14 hours ago, LinusTech said:

There won't be a big WAN Show segment about this or anything. Most of what I have to say, I've already said, and I've done so privately.

To Steve, I expressed my disappointment that he didn't go through proper journalistic practices in creating this piece. He has my email and number (along with numerous other members of our team) and could have asked me for context that may have proven to be valuable (like the fact that we didn't 'sell' the monoblock, but rather auctioned it for charity due to a miscommunication... AND the fact that while we haven't sent payment yet, we have already agreed to compensate Billet Labs for the cost of their prototype). There are other issues, but I've told him that I won't be drawn into a public sniping match over this and that I'll be continuing to move forward in good faith as part of 'Team Media'. When/if he's ready to do so again I'll be ready.

To my team (and my CEO's team, but realistically I was at the helm for all of these errors, so I need to own it), I stressed the importance of diligence in our work because there are so many eyes on us. We are going through some growing pains - we've been very public about them in the interest of transparency - and it's clear we have some work to do on internal processes and communication. We have already been doing a lot of work internally to clean up our processes, but these things take time. Rome wasn't built in a day, but that's no excuse for sloppiness.

Now, for my community, all I can say is the same things I always say. We know that we're not perfect. We wear our imperfection on our sleeves in the interest of ensuring that we stay accountable to you. But it's sad and unfortunate when this transparency gets warped into a bad thing. The Labs team is hard at work hard creating processes and tools to generate data that will benefit all consumers - a work in progress that is very much not done and that we've communicated needs to be treated as such. Do we have notes under some videos? Yes. Is it because we are striving for transparency/improvement? Yeah... What we're doing hasn't been in many years, if ever.. and we would make a much larger correction if the circumstances merited it. Listing the wrong amount of cache on a table for a CPU review is sloppy, but given that our conclusions are drawn based on our testing, not the spec sheet, it doesn't materially change the recommendation. That doesn't mean these things don't matter. We've set KPIs for our writing/labs team around accuracy, and we are continually installing new checks and balances to ensure that things continue to get better. If you haven't seen the improvement, frankly I wonder if you're really looking for it... The thoroughness that we managed on our last handful of GPU videos is getting really incredible given the limited time we have for these embargoes. I'm REALLY excited about what the future will hold.

 

With all of that said, I still disagree that the Billet Labs video (not the situation with the return, which I've already addressed above) is an 'accuracy' issue. It's more like I just read the room wrong. We COULD have re-tested it with perfect accuracy, but to do so PROPERLY - accounting for which cases it could be installed in (none) and which radiators it would be plumbed with (again... mystery) would have been impossible... and also didn't affect the conclusion of the video... OR SO I THOUGHT...

 

I wanted to evaluate it as a product, and as a product, IF it could manage to compete with the temperatures of the highest end blocks on the planet, it still wouldn't make sense to buy... so from my point of view, re-testing it and finding out that yes, it did in fact run cooler made no difference to the conclusion, so it didn't really make a difference.

 

Adam and I were talking about this today. He advocated for re-testing it regardless of how non-viable it was as a product at the time and I think he expressed really well today why it mattered. It was like making a video about a supercar. It doesn't mater if no one watching will buy it. They just wanna see it rip.  I missed that, but it wasn't because I didn't care about the consumer.. it was because I was so focused on how this product impacted a potential buyer. Either way, clearly my bad, but my intention was never to harm Billet Labs. I specifically called out their incredible machining skills because I wanted to see them create something with a viable market for it and was hoping others would appreciate the fineness of the craftsmanship even if the product was impractical. I still hope they move forward building something else because they obviously have talent and I've watched countless niche water cooling vendors come and go. It's an astonishingly unforgiving market.

 

Either way, I'm sorry I got the community's priorities mixed-up on this one, and that we didn't show the Billet in the best light. Our intention wasn't to hurt anyone. We wanted no one to buy it (because it's an egregious waste of money no matter what temps it runs at) and we wanted Billet to make something marketable (so they can, y'know, eat).

 

With all of this in mind, it saddens me how quickly the pitchforks were raised over this. It also comes across a touch hypocritical when some basic due diligence could have helped clarify much of it. I have a LONG history of meeting issues head on and I've never been afraid to answer questions, which lands me in hot water regularly, but helps keep me in tune with my peers and with the community. The only reason I can think of not to ask me is because my honest response might be inconvenient. 

 

We can test that... with this post. Will the "It was a mistake (a bad one, but a mistake) and they're taking care of it" reality manage to have the same reach? Let's see if anyone actually wants to know what happened. I hope so, but it's been disheartening seeing how many people were willing to jump on us here. Believe it or not, I'm a real person and so is the rest of my team. We are trying our best, and if what we were doing was easy, everyone would do it. Today sucks.

 

Thanks for reading this.

 

First of all, while I know that this is my first here, I have been watching your content daily since you went to Singapore to show us around the market there and install a better internet solution in your family's home. I've been listening to the WAN show regularly since that time. LTT was there during most of my time in high school, then university, all the stuff you've taught for free on WAN was instrumental in starting my own company, and now working for one of those big technology companies you (rightfully) hate a lot but also (rightfully) admit are full of passionate people who want to do better. I was well on my journey with tech when I found your stuff, but the videos definitely became a part of the journey along the way. I've supported you financially as well, but I never felt the inclination to be in the "community". Hence, fresh account.

That said, I am very disappointed by this response, which I consider mostly inadequate given the scale of the problem being reported on. All the more so because have shown time and time again on the WAN Show that you clearly understand how your business and livelihood depends on the viewers and their confidence in your ability to deliver content that is relevant and informative. Last Saturday, you dedicated an entire 20 minute segment to just explaining how audiences always seem to raise the bar of quality they expect, and the YouTube graveyard is filled with creators who could not adapt to the changing conditions. Audiences voted with their eyeballs and left.

 

This also extends to data quality, not just production quality. Your entire self-admitted mission is education through entertainment. Entertainment is self-admittedly a secondary goal to getting people to learn something new in your videos. Being sloppy, ignoring errors when noticed too late in the production process, or correcting them in a way audiences listening to your video or watching it on a TV won't ever see it is a huge problem if the company itself is targeting people who want to learn from your videos, and presumably expect the data presented to be fact-checked and trustworthy as a result.

 

I understand raising that particular bar takes time, but having it drop in the process will cause your brand rep to tank over time, which will be very difficult to restore even if you end up with an excellent testing pipeline down the road. You are risking becoming the Alienware of tech content. You clearly do not want to end up there, but the way you're progressing, you will. You clearly must understand this, so why do you not act in the way you'd expect a business partner would if their products or services were consistently below par?

 

If MSI sold people a series of defective motherboards, a tradesperson made consistent silly mistakes in your home, or if you went to a small family restaurant you know the owner of and you'd have to consistently send the order back because they missed something, would you not expect their apology to contain something more than "sorry we were sloppy, we promise we'll fix it eventually"? You did this way better for both the Creator Warehouse customer support problems, and the backpack zipper pull problems.

 

Second, the "enthusiast" market for a product does not make up a large proportion of revenue for a company, but they have an important factor as "micro-influencers" within their immediate social group. You said this on WAN multiple times, but the same is true for LMG and your audience, especially as you are trying to divest from YouTube and to a model where your audience more directly contributes to project they consider valuable. Your core product is the informative and entertaining content you release.

 

I am not saying this can't be overcome or turned around, but I think associating this latest batch of clearly flawed videos with "sending the product to the lab for testing" was clearly the wrong move. I understand the rationale of trying to project to your viewers that the Labs is already "up and running", but this is clearly not fully true, and in the meantime all it's doing is making me not trust anything "the lab" has to say about anything. If anything, you should mention both in the video and on the charts that the data may be inaccurate due to process changes you are going through.

 

Again, I don't think I need to explain this, but tarnishing the reputation of "the lab" prematurely is a huge problem. How do you expect people to buy a subscription to LTT Labs (which looks like the #1 monetization strategy you're considering), a website whose value proposition is measuring thousands of products accurately in a scalable fashion if you can't even get it right on the products individually tested? Again, by associating the lab with these flawed results, you cause them to be intertwined in people's minds unnecessarily. You need the "enthusiast market" for your videos to convert on Labs. If they can't trust the info, they will not subscribe. If they don't subscribe, they won't convert their friends, or the broader community. And that is a serious problem.

 

How do you expect people to trust any of the value-adds the Labs is meant to bring to videos, if your processes don't catch basic errors? You can have the sickest RF chamber on the block, if people won't care about the data produced from it because you're building up a reputation as an unreliable source of data, or as an outlet that cannot interpret and present the data produced from the equipment (the microphone video today is a great example of this one). Again, as an example, how long do you think it would take for e.g. Razer to rebuild their rep on peripherals now that they've trashed it, even if they decided to invest billions of dollars in their R&D and manufacturing capacity? Would such a move even be financially sensible now that they've (inadvertently) placed themselves in the product segment they're in?

 

It clearly seems that you don't want to end up like the Razer or Alienware of tech content: looks pretty, does not perform. This clearly isn't where you're steering the company given your investment into the Lab and the future of LGM you've mentioned on WAN multiple times. What your audience is telling you is, despite your efforts, you are on the path to being associated with precisely that. You know audiences losing trust in your ability to make content is the death knell of many a journalistic outlet. Your audience is trying to tell you that they are starting to lose that trust as a result of the drop in quality. And you know full well that if they do end up convinced, your investment in the Labs will be futile. People would expect you to treat it as the serious threat to your operations as it is; you not doing so is why you're receiving the negative backlash to your response.

 

I like LMG. I want you to do better. Please do.

[Dom1252]

@Terren Tong 

where is response from CEO? or is Linus still CEO that he pins his own comment here? 

[GameFox]

5 minutes ago, filpo said:

remember, Linus isn't the bad guy, though he's starting to make himself look like one

 

check the recommended post at the top and unfortunately, it doesn't seem like they will, though they should

I agree with your points. After watching the video, my initial thought wasn't that Linus himself was a bad person, but instead his oversight caused these issues. His response as you said, paints a picture of him as the antagonist. I believe that if his response was different, there would not be as many people with pitchforks.

 

Hopefully he reverses his decision and addresses it to save a bit of his image. I will gladly continue to support his content if he does so, but I suppose his decision could go either way.

[DeerDK]

3 minutes ago, bandainamcofan said:

Once again, an ethics board explicitly disagrees with the idea that you always have to reach out for comment.

Did you actually read what you linked to? I cut out some pieces to highlight why I think that link actuall supports my position.

"

IPSO Blog: Do journalists have to contact people before they publish a story about them?

Complaints Officer Alice Gould explains the circumstances where journalists will need to contact someone they’re writing a story about – and why sometimes they don’t have to.

.....

At IPSO we receive quite a few inquiries from people wanting advice about whether journalists need to contact them before publishing a story about them.

If someone is involved in a news story, they could potentially be approached by members of the press for comment, information or even photographs. Some people may not want to speak to the press (advice about what to do if this is the case here) whereas others may choose to speak to journalists.

 

....

 

If an article contains personal or serious allegations or claims against an individual, it may be appropriate and necessary to give that individual an opportunity to respond to these claims, or to deny them if they wish.

 

.....

 

The Code also contains a requirement for a publication to give a “fair opportunity to reply to significant inaccuracies should be given, when reasonably called for”, but this relates to information that has already been published, rather than a requirement for pre-publication contact.

There are many reasons a journalists may need or want to contact someone prior to publication – for example, to check facts, to seek further information, or to get comment − but the newspaper is not under a duty to contact every person involved in every story they write.

In fact, there are several reasons why they might not, for example:

• they may not be able to get into contact with the person
• a person’s comments may already be in the public domain
• the person may have asked the press not to contact them
• telling the person prior to publication may have an impact on the story
• it may be inappropriate to contact the person
• it may be impractical to contact everyone involved in the article.

"

 

 

So please tell me. Which of the points do you think absolves the need for reaching out?

 

I would say that "If an article contains personal or serious allegations or claims against an individual, it may be appropriate and necessary to give that individual an opportunity to respond to these claims, or to deny them if they wish." Indicates that it would have been appropriate to reach out.