Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[William M]

The only I really says that is concern for me is billet lab video card block.  LTT should responded to that.  That should be own video on main channel.  Not just WAN show.  Using 4090 when another card should be used. They could still ran 4090. Then in follow up video that should test it with correct card. Maybe have billet lab if still willing come on show how should it be mounted.  This would serve as way for LTT show that have made thing correct with vendor. If they have actioned off the part that was not part of the original deal. They should get that back. See if there something else they can give person won.  I would just make the video not necessarily call out community said we should to do it.

As far the other review mistakes. LTT really just needs makes sure the mistakes are looked policy changed or corrected to lessen the risk of that happening

[dimforest]

Extremely disappointing to see how badly this is being handled. I sincerely hope the previous response is retracted and a more appropriate response is taken, including a public apology to Billet Labs and fans of LMG's content. 

[Reclus]

6 minutes ago, Legitsu said:

Right back at you. There's nothing that could convince you that what gamers Nexus did was a low blow and questionable journalistic ethics because he's the journalistic equivalent of YouTube's golden boy. He can do no wrong. There's no possible way he has an ego problem or an agenda this talking head on YouTube presents himself in such a genuine way. There's no possible way he's doing the exact thing. He's accusing others of it. That never happens right?

 

Here we run into the problems with absolutes folks there are no absolutes putting the troll hat down for a minute because honestly this is getting tiresome 

it could be the lowest of the blows and the most questionable of ethics and Steve could literally be the scum of the earth. It wouldn't matter in the slightest. He produced 2 videos with sufficient evidence, time stamps and quotes to show that what LTT is doing is blatantly wrong and impacts the industry in a very negative way. More over it misrepresents to it's own audience their own actions and pushes only their own bottom line. Nothing you can throw say about Steve will change this.

[ImpliedSilence]

35 minutes ago, harls said:

Linus never said LMG and Billet agreed to a price.  He very well could have been talking that LMG internally agreed to pay and would need to discuss the price.   The fact that Steve feels LMG is bad so he does not have to see if there is a different answer doesn't mean there isn't.  Or it could be that Linus was trying to pull a fast one.  Steve is wrong in his "journalistic" approach.  Linus is wrong in his handling of Billet, we just do not know how wrong.

Now you're just jumping through hoops trying to find a way to defend Linus.

[Thaldor]

6 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

Yeah I don't get why Luke keeps going on the WAN show, unless he has some contract with Linus so he has to or something. His reactions when he disagrees with something dumb Linus says a lot, I'd like to see him actually speak up and make a point but he might not out of fear of Linus going off on him.

That's pretty much the thing. Linus wants Luke there because he knows Luke will have his back even if Luke was to disagree with him. Luke also won't go and deal the low blows to Linus because they know each other, like Luke won't pressure Linus over that he contacted Billet Labs only after the GN video went live and just before posting his response like he would have had the whole thing "done right" a week ago because that would most likely push Linus over the edge.

 

@Legitsu This is also exactly why GN probably didn't ask Linus for input before going public, Linus would have instantly, before even answering Steve, contacted his lawyer and Billet Labs to make it seem like LMG didn't fuck up as badly as they did. Was it against good journalistic ways? Kind of, you should reach out for input before going public but in cases where the party invovled will go and try to undermine not only your news piece but do shitty things generally, it is a rule that can be broken.

[harls]

2 minutes ago, MotherboardsInThePark said:

How could two different statements about time both be true at the same time? Is your brain functioning today, darling?

Where did linus  LMG and BIllet agreed to a price to pay before the GN video went up?  He did not say that.  If Linus watched GN video and called up Tehran and said "we fucked up and are going to have to pay Billet".   Linus did not lie.  Steve interpreted his statement to believe that Linus said LMG and Billet agreed to a payment but that is not what Linus said. 

[Rsg_6100]

5 minutes ago, Ironman420 said:

It is a long post, I would love you to go through it all before replying. Yesterday when I watched GN’s video, things he pointed out were not new to me. I have observed it myself. I have read and heard the opinions of many people about the matter. As someone who once worked in this industry and has some experience and ideas about testing, I want to share my perspective.

There is no denying that there are gross inaccuracies in various LTT videos. Whether it is as simple as inaccuracies about the amount of cache memory to as big as the 4090 Cyberpunk chart. If someone has followed LTT for a long time knows that these are not new things. They have made mistakes in the review videos in the past. But it is different in recent times. You may ask, why is that? Well, when you mentioned something like “our lab has run benchmarks on this and found that…” then you are trying to assert that you have tested things thoroughly and we should expect the result to be accurate. Now in this case you might say that the lab is new, so their process isn’t fine-tuned yet. And this is exactly what Linus has said in his reply to this post. Well, that means they know that the results that are coming out of the lab can be wrong and they are knowingly putting those results in a review video. If your process isn’t fine-tuned, that means your product (method in this case) is in alpha or beta. And you don’t put your beta/alpha product in production. 

 

Proper testing is complex, and I know it, LTT knows it. Mistakes happen because, at the end of the day, we are human, after all. But if you know your testing method might not be correct and still put those testing results in your video and base your review conclusion on those testing, then you are doing ethically wrong here. You either do a review properly or don’t; there is no middle ground. A buyer who is deciding his/her purchasing decision on your review doesn’t care about your process, he just wants it to be accurate. So if you can’t be accurate, don’t do it. Now you can say even if they correct those mistakes, that would not change the ultimate conclusion, then, I would say this is the most ignorant way of accepting your mistake. What if someone only cares about 4090’s Cyberpunk performance and after watching the LTT video he might assume that 4090 is 300% superior compared to other cards which is factually wrong. If only one person is misguided, then that’s too many. 

 

And let’s talk about @LinusTech response. Linus in his post, said along the line, “We know we have made mistakes, we are actively trying to improve it. But things are not moving as fast as I want to be. We strive to become better.” This is the most generic corporate BS you generally hear from a big corporation. This is not a response from a YouTube creator who claims to own his mistakes. Dude, you are not even trying to address the root issue here: lack of time. You claim that LTT doesn’t prioritize quality over quantity, yet all of your recent GPU reviews are filled with the wrong chart derived from the flawed test methodology. If someone with enough knowledge (which many LTT staff has) has gone through those charts before publishing would definitely have noticed those inconsistencies. This is something that Linus knows, his staffs know, but he is actively trying to deny. If Linus knowingly denies it, then it is terrible and if is doing it unknowingly then someone has brought this up in front of him. 

 

Look, I understand why they need to post 23 (or 27?) videos a week. They have a really big team, and so they have to produce that many videos in order to sustain their business. Now on the surface, it sounds reasonable that they have 100+ people on their team. But how many of those people are actually working on core video topics, not many, I suppose. They need more writers if they want quality videos. And this is something they should have understood before scaling up their amount of uploads in a short period. 

 

Now let’s talk about the lack of expertise that people are mentioning. They have branched out in many fields, which is not a bad thing, but before covering a particular segment of tech, you should understand that segment properly. Let’s take an example, their coverage of mobile phones. I don’t want to sound like j*rk, but they are utterly unknowledgeable about mobile phones. I understand that they might be enthusiastic about mobile phones and they want to cover that. Still, really, they should refrain from doing that until they have someone who understands mobile phones and has tested various smartphones in their life, like what they have done with the Apple-specific Mac Address channel. I could be a football enthusiast, but that doesn’t mean I should go on TV and give an expert opinion. 

 

Now let’s come to the point of how GN has covered the whole thing. If you think that this was not a hit piece, then you are just too ignorant or just kidding yourself. While what GN said is not wrong, he has over-sensationalized/dramatized some facts in his favor. For example, Gary’s past affiliation with ASUS or the new CEO’s affiliation with Dell/Corsair. This is idiotic to assume just because of their past affiliation, they would do biased work. Let’s say I want to do the best GPU testing, and I hire someone who has worked at Nvidia as a GPU tester. If you say that just because he has worked in Nvidia in the past, he will do biased testing and would favor Nvidia only, then are simply wrong. First, you are assuming things without knowing the person, and second, you have no experience working for various companies. There is plenty of examples of people who have worked at AWS, and next, they joined Azure or GCP. Just because they have worked in AWS, doesn’t mean they will continue to work for AWS even after joining GCP or Azure.

 

Steve has discussed Linus’s framework investment and how reviewing other brands’ laptops is a conflict of interest. Even if LTT denies of conflict of interest, Framework makes laptops so do other brands like HP, Dell, and Asus also makes laptop. So being in the same segment if LTT reviews HP laptops, that is a conflict of interest. Well, fair enough, I do agree with it. So being in the same segment makes it a conflict of interest. Huh! So isn’t this expose too convenient and a conflict of interest for GN? Aren’t they in the same segment? Why would rules be different for GN? GN claims that they have turned off monetization of this video and they would not gain anything from it. It’s like saying AMD would not gain anything by exposing the mistakes of Nvidia. While technically, GN has not done anything wrong by pointing out the mistake of LTT, they can't deny the conflict of interest here. I would not go deep into this. I won’t discuss the topic of the LAB tour and how that might have triggered GN. But if you want to assess the situation unbiasedly, both sides should be scrutinized whether you like it or not. I do believe this expose should help people who were not aware of LTT’s inaccuracies. 

 

Now let’s talk about the Billet Lab cooler case. LTT’s video on it is just outright trash, to say the least. If someone sends you a unique product and you want to make a video on it, then you should and must follow their instructions on how to use it. You might not like the functionality of the, or it’s working, but you should do it according to the instruction as it is not a standard product. And shooting a video on a unique product without instruction and prior testing is the highest level of ignorance. Not only have they tested it against a wrong component, but after people pointed it, they simply said it’s not worth their time/money to do proper testing of it. This has to be the most ignorant and egoistic thing to say. If you don’t want to do it properly then why make a video on it in the first place? As I have said earlier, you either do it properly or don’t do it, there is no middle ground. Then they went ahead and auctioned it off despite saying they would return it. Linus has said this is a one-off in ten years, and they don’t need to change their SOP. Well, no system or process is perfect, there will be some problems in it. And when the problem arises you fix your system/process. Now if you say well it's just one time so need to worry, then you are essentially waiting for it to happen once again in the future. As this cooler was their best prototype, I can imagine it is tough and sad for them to lose it. It will not only delay their future production but also can affect their product’s success. And they should be paid accordingly. But at the same time, they also need to be aware of the risks of sending your best prototype to someone else for testing. That is why companies sign a contract for this type of scenario. And as some people pointed out that their competitor might buy and reverse engineer it. Well, that’s why the patent exists. And if your product can’t be patented, someone can buy it and reverse engineer it anyway, and you can’t do anything about it. 

 

And lastly, I want to talk about some people’s reactions. I have seen people saying, “Linus is a scumbag,” “I hope LTT goes bankrupt”, “I was praying for this day to come”, “Linus is a narcissist,” etc. To those people, I want to say, get a life dude. I understand your sixteen years old brain doesn’t understand or can’t process these types of things. And it’s ok, you will get there one day. Nobody is forcing you to watch LTT or GN or HUB or J2C, if you don’t like someone, don’t watch them. But wishing them harm is a low-IQ move. 

 

There is no denying the fact that these mistakes should not outrun the goods that LTT has done over the year. LTT should be praised for igniting curiosity about tech in the heart of thousands of people like me. I have learned a lot about tech in general from LTT and I can’t deny that. Because of that, today I am informed enough to criticize LTT.  LTT has contributed a lot to the growth of the tech space in general. Because of the sheer size of LTT, we get to see many exciting tech products. Mistakes and failure are part of the process, one should embrace them to improve further. I hope that LTT can produce accurate data that can benefit many future users and buyers. I want to finish with what Green Goblin said in Spiderman, “You chose the way of the hero. And they found you amusing for a while, the people of this city. But the one thing they love more than a hero is to see a hero fail, fall, and die trying. In spite of everything you've done for them, eventually, they will hate you.” 

You just spent 2 paragraphs on 90% of the GN video and the rest of the wall of text on 2 points of the GN video he spent 5 minutes on in a 44 minute video. I think you are missing the forest because of the trees.

[Texbobcat]

38 minutes ago, swimtome said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think this word treading is a perfect example where Linus's way of talking causes easy shots.

 

If I watched Steve's video without any other context, I would think Linus was selling the block for his own monetary gains.  As in an evil greedy get cash for everything!  Linus obviously gets defensive about that and wants to clarify it was sold for charity.  He isn't trying to deny wrongdoing, just wants to be specific about whoa I didn't do THAT.

 

Does it change the result - that a serious lack of ownership caused them to lose something that didn't belong to them?  No, of course not.  And I don't think Linus would deny that.

 

 But when you're getting attacked it's very easy (and human) to focus on the extremes. So I minorly disagree with Steve's recent hardware news response treating Linus's response as if he said "I didn't do anything wrong, I AUCTIONED IT FOR CHARITY, noT sOLd it" when Linus is really saying "Whoa what the hell no I didn't sell it for my own gain. But I did fuck up so..."

 

I'm not trying to get into but Linus/Steve this/that... just trying to say that Linus (for better or worse) speaks without a PR person so I find a slightly unfair when pitchforkers will act like he's an evil CEO lying about everything when I think we can all agree it's at least a little more nuanced then that.  Like everywhere in life, when you talk in extremes, you're probably being at least a little inaccurate.

Brother he just trippled down made snarky remarks about the company then gas light his community, him saying he sold it to charity and not for profit isn't why people are angry it's his shitty response showing that he doesn't care.

[kw10001]

9 minutes ago, Orthusaku said:

"We made the mistake of auctioning the block that we did not own. We are going to work to get the block back to the rightful owner, and return the money from the auction. We did not accurately review the prototype and will be deleting the video about it. We will be making a video going out the changes we will be making to ensure our data is both accurate, valid, and not used incorrectly."

You're hired!

[JorjXMcKie]

2 minutes ago, LinusTechLies said:

And the fanboys defending that is just fucken insane.

 

AUCTIONING IT OR SELLING IT MAKES NO DAMN DIFFERENCE. WHAT THEY STILL DID WAS STEALING SOMETHING THAT DID NOT BELONG TO THEM.

 

If I were to take another companies hardware and without permission sell it at auction my ass would be in jail within minutes.

 

What @LinusTech did and by extension his company was intellectual property theft.

I realize it's a false distinction thrown out as chum for the evangelicals. I was just pointing it out because I realized I had accepted the frame of GN saying it was a sale which is not at all what they said.

[SomeSin]

Just now, snkiz said:

Hell he  mentions how accessible he is to Steve. Steve was one of the fist ones to contact him, trough personal channels about the hack. It's getting lost in the noise. But Steve has pretty much ghosted Linus since 'Trust me Bro' How do you do a piece like that and not reach out for comment? Then to do it again in what was clearly revenge after that wan show. What ever points Steve made went down the drain with his integrity when he did that IMO. And No one is talking about that. Steve calls himself a journalist? He's proving to be nothing more than another petty you-tuber.

Why should he reach out for a comment? Steve is doing what reporter should do - he reports on the issue, that's what it looks like. Not the "bothsideism" when NASA expert should be joined by flat-earth believer for "balanced" approach.

[ImWilly]

I have watched LTT over a decade ago, back when I started college

 

It's quite sad for LTT response after Gamers Nexus pointing out the flaw / small misstep that his team has accumulated all these years and instead of apologize, he defend his teams and himself. Especially the water block for 3090 that they janky test on 4090, then claim it got lost and not return to the startup company that develop it, then auction it, which is frankly disgusting (pardon my French). 

His teams do talk about the extremely fast pace and not enough time to have a retrospective over interview a year ago, and it seems it finally caught up to them

 

And I have purchased some of their merch, for the first time this year as show of support (both before and during lime day), I can only hope they can learn from this mistake and be better 

 

Lastly, if LMG focus KPI are viewership, then perhaps by not watching, it will finally make them start retrospective 

[MotherboardsInThePark]

Just now, harls said:

Where did linus  LMG and BIllet agreed to a price to pay before the GN video went up?  He did not say that.  If Linus watched GN video and called up Tehran and said "we fucked up and are going to have to pay Billet".   Linus did not lie.  Steve interpreted his statement to believe that Linus said LMG and Billet agreed to a payment but that is not what Linus said. 

You're a lost cause buddy.

[WillHeard]

There’s coming back from this for LMG. what does it look like

• real apology from linus. maybe a short break from the company , for his sake
• Pause the content creation. Give yourself a week to evaluate processes and figure out how to do better. Expensive? yep. Worth rebuilding trust and faith? yep
• Come up with a robust way to respond to emergencies. You made this way, way worse with your responses on here Linus.

This is totally possible. But it won’t be overnight and you need to commit, publicly and internally.

[Touch My Hamm]

The amount of people creating accounts or burner accounts to not folly their mains to say "here is my opinion" to then add nothing of value is crazy. I stick by what I said before. People on both sides appear to be misinterpreting what is meant by each others wording and meanings.

[Alexeygridnev1993]

17 minutes ago, DerKleine said:

Based on recent WAN Shows we already know that they are evaluating different processes for making videos more reliable, but that doesn't really change the fact you can't guarantee with absolute certainty that all future videos will be 100% reliable.

That is just nonsense. They were much more reliable before when they had a 20-30 people team; there is no reason they cannot do it again even without an expensive lab. All they need to do is to give more time to the team to do their job properly.

[ManWithHabits]

I have 2 issues with this:

 

Everything that LMG has is built on the trust and support of viewers / subscriber / merch bitches (Yes, I'm all of these)

If I can't trust someone to tell me the truth, to correct themselves when they make an honest mistake *in a plain and obvious manner* then the trust has gone.

The moment you open a box and start spouting 'facts' I expect to be able to trust you, because that's the reputation you have built up over the last decade. If you can't be bothered to fact check before pumping out content, I'll go find someone else to trust and support in whatever way I choose to.

 

If your aim is to be the trusted reviewer of everything you touch, then get your facts right. Read the instructions. Use the item as the manufacturer intended.

 

If this is the state of LMG now, please explain in simple language why I should continue to watch, subscribe and buy from you.

 

Second major issue is with the corrections - when they happen. a note on the screen isn't seen if you're background noise while I'm working. A pinned comment is not seen unless a revisit a video (and if you tell me that a product is shit, why would I ever come back to that video?). If the stats are badly affected because you have to pull videos / re-edit them or whatever reason it is you don't reshoot - don't fuck up in the first place.

 

I'm not perfect, and I don't expect anyone else to be. However, the mistakes in LMG content are getting to a ludicrous level which comes across as incompetance, or your field of reputational fucks being completely barren.

 

The fun stuff I love and I have no issue with it, but for fuck's sake, do the basics right, or I suspect at least some of us would be forced to go elsewhere for anything we need to research.

[Pailloran]

Just now, harls said:

Where did linus  LMG and BIllet agreed to a price to pay before the GN video went up?  He did not say that.  If Linus watched GN video and called up Tehran and said "we fucked up and are going to have to pay Billet".   Linus did not lie.  Steve interpreted his statement to believe that Linus said LMG and Billet agreed to a payment but that is not what Linus said. 

That's what I got out of it as well.  I never read Linus' response as saying they did it beforehand; I read it as saying we did it, and assumed it was due to the GN vid.  I was surprised Steve took it that way.  Maybe he was rushing. 

[JorjXMcKie]

2 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

That's pretty much the thing. Linus wants Luke there because he knows Luke will have his back even if Luke was to disagree with him. Luke also won't go and deal the low blows to Linus because they know each other, like Luke won't pressure Linus over that he contacted Billet Labs only after the GN video went live and just before posting his response like he would have had the whole thing "done right" a week ago because that would most likely push Linus over the edge.

 

@Legitsu This is also exactly why GN probably didn't ask Linus for input before going public, Linus would have instantly, before even answering Steve, contacted his lawyer and Billet Labs to make it seem like LMG didn't fuck up as badly as they did. Was it against good journalistic ways? Kind of, you should reach out for input before going public but in cases where the party invovled will go and try to undermine not only your news piece but do shitty things generally, it is a rule that can be broken.

Luke is his friend. They've been through a lot together, and they will probably get through this together too.

[The_Q42]

I'm a big fan of LTT, and have been watching for years.  I, however, have to side with GN on this one: the long response post from Linus does play victim more than it should, and it neatly dodges some of the direct challenges GN raised.

 

I've always been impressed with LMG's openness, which seems an ultra-rare thing in the tech industry, but I'm pretty disappointed in LMG's response.  The Billet Labs response/actions are just bad.  The room was not misread, but according to GN and Billet Labs, LMG did not follow the instructions given, and still, even in the apology are lambasting their product over it.  It's a niche, low volume market where reputation is king, and LMG owes it to Billet to make things right.

 

I fully believe that the intent of LMG and the Labs project is  to do exactly what's on the label: provide unbiased, scientifically confirmed data to the masses so we can make better purchasing decisions and hold manufacturer's accountable when they screw up.  I also work at a company that went from 30 employees to nearly 200 in the span of 1.5 years.  Growing pains are real.  Defining proper process and establishing lines of internal comms is hard.  I can absolutely forgive all of that, and chalk almost everything GN mentioned up to such pains.

 

What's harder for me to accept is the defensiveness and the tendency to play victim.  Linus's post could've been: "Yeah, we definitely screwed up.  We're carefully reviewing everything GN said, and we're working directly with them to address their concerns.  We're going to make things right the community and learn from these mistakes.  More to come soon."  Then all you'd have to do is follow it up with real action to fix the issues and tell us about it.  

 

Instead you're complaining about "proper journalistic process"?  Come on.  They don't need to reach out to you unless they want your statement.  In this case, I'm on board with GN's approach because they rightfully fear the influence LMG has in this space (you guys are freaking huge, and wield a metric ton of influence). 

 

I'm not posting this because I want to jam a pitchfork anywhere unpleasant.  I've been watching LTT from pretty early on, and continue to be a huge fan.  I put a lot of faith in your reviews, and regularly make product decisions based on your recommendations.  Hell, I even own an LTT Screwdriver (lttstore.com), as well as some other merch.

 

I'm posting because it seems clear that Linus and the real people at LMG (who I truly believe care about their community and their ability to produce good content) should hear feedback from the community.

[harls]

1 minute ago, MotherboardsInThePark said:

You're a lost cause buddy.

Sorry I am not calling someone a liar for something they very well are not lying about. 

[Hezkezl]

4 minutes ago, snkiz said:

Hell he  mentions how accessible he is to Steve. Steve was one of the fist ones to contact him, trough personal channels about the hack. It's getting lost in the noise. But Steve has pretty much ghosted Linus since 'Trust me Bro' How do you do a piece like that and not reach out for comment? Then to do it again in what was clearly revenge after that wan show. What ever points Steve made went down the drain with his integrity when he did that IMO. And No one is talking about that. Steve calls himself a journalist? He's proving to be nothing more than another petty you-tuber.

Tell us you didn't watch this new video without telling us that you didn't watch the video.

[coopa]

1 minute ago, smcoakley said:

First, issuing a response is going to take time. On one hand, people are saying that they are upset by Linus' "hasty" responses and want something that isn't just "by the seat of his pants", but on the other hand, they are demanding some kind of formal apology immediately. Which is it? If you want them to post some kind of video addressing the issue that is well thought out, then that's going to take some time, more than just a few hours. I'd wait a few days, maybe even a week.

The answer would have been not to post at all before making the video, or making a shorter initial statement to the effect of "While we don't agree with all of the content in the Gamers Nexus video, we plan to address these points in a new video to be released in the coming days. We appreciate the community and want to be fully transparent. Producing quality content for our community is our #1 priority" would have been fine and given them time to deep dive into each issue.

But Linus bitterly takes it as a personal attack, so he has to post a self-serving gaslighting reply that portrays himself as the victim and uses weasel words to imply the Billet labs situation had been amicably resolved with Billet before Steve published the video - when in fact, that wasn't the case, and the offer to give Billet recompense for the auctioned prototype was only extended AFTER Steve's video.

 

4 minutes ago, smcoakley said:

Though I will add that "YouTuber apology videos" is probably more of a meme nowadays than something people takes seriously, so is that really what we want? Would that even work, or be satisfactory? Because I'm a little doubtful about that. Linus isn't stupid; I'm sure he's doubtful about it as well, which is why his gut reaction was to say there wouldn't be a public video segment about it.

He has a technical audience. I would expect the community would be satisfied with a video that honestly acknowledged the issues, that they occurred, why they occurred, and what they plan to do in order to improve future videos. Instead we got a self-serving corporate speak reply that barely touched on Billet and gave generic non-committal speech on "we're always trying to do better, humans make mistakes, blahblahblah".

 

6 minutes ago, smcoakley said:

Another concern is the number of corrections being made on videos in post-production. Sure, that's not ideal, and I also have noticed this increasing. But an increase in the number of errors made during filming is only one possible explanation. Another possible explanation is that LTT videos have always had a similar number of mistakes, and the increase in corrections made during editing is actually an improvement as opposed to no correction at all. Perhaps only now are the mistakes more clear. It is possible that we are recognizing the point on the graph being less than 100%, but maybe we're interpreting the direction of the curve incorrectly?

If they had made such statements, even if not supported in fact, then they could use that as a reason, but instead we got the generic reply "always trying to do better" from Linus that feels extremely dismissive and not actually dignifying it with a response. (The fact that Linus has stated he has no plans of addressing this on the WAN show on Friday is more proof that his attitude is dismissive.)

 

7 minutes ago, smcoakley said:

The Billet Labs thing is a separate concern of its own that I feel doesn't really tie into the rest of the criticisms, and mixing the two is just muddying things up. From the outside it does appear like a pretty bad blunder, but I don't know that it was malicious. Never assume malice when incompetence is a sufficient explanation. And this policy can probably be applied to most of the accusations by GN; not only is it more charitable to do so, its also more likely to get at the truth, because in my experience more often than not, incompetence was the actual cause and not malice.

The problem is that whether or not it was ignorance or malice, or done in a profitable sale or a charity auction (note: an auction is a form of sale), the damage to Billet for the loss of their prototype is still real, and the offer to reimburse Billet only came after Gamer's Nexus published their video. The root cause is likely the same: poor management/rushed production schedules at LMG, which cause them to lose attention to detail. 

 

In terms of "want to give LTT a chance to respond further" - nobody put a gun to Linus' head and made him reply the way he did. But he rushed a very poor statement out the door that makes the attitude of LTT seem dismissive and that they are not going to take the feedback seriously.

I will see what LTT has to say in the future. But Linus has replied publicly in this thread at this point. We have two sides of the story - even if LTT rushed theirs out the door and should have waited.

[another1]

at this point i'm just baffled by him (linus) replying/commenting about the accusations here of all the places & not even on twitter. If he thinks he is in the right then he shouldn't just be talking here. he must make his official replies announcements on a much wider platform be it Youtube or twitter. But he won't do it becoz any reasonably sensible man/woman who can look at the facts provided by GN, will start questioning the authenticity of their work & that would create a further divide & distrust on them, which is why i dare him to talk about this topic more in goof like exaggerated & trying to act real manner (in which he normally does) & let his whole audiences see where he actually stands.
linus has become sucha double-throat character that it's unbearable sometimes to listen his views on things, he likes to play both sides in a situation just so no one gets angry or questions him, mainly when he starts taking sides with a corporation which would not only benefit him but also make the competition look bad or vice-versa. which is why channels like GN or HW never really back down on trying to save a corp or make a dishonest feedbacks of a product just to make everyone happy (or shall i say entertain). atleat THIS Is What i Saw & since stopped watching his videos either day-1 reviews. he lost authenticity since then (sometime in 2021) for me.
he has a voice, knowledge, skill & above all an enthusiasm (love) for the work he does there's no denying that but he can't be taking sides, not him or any other person for their personal gains especially when people rely on u for insight & to make the right decisions.

[JesterTechStuff]

48 minutes ago, projectsrx said:

I really hope both parties, Linus and GN, can come to good resolve on this. I think Linus did have genuine thoughts in his statement, I mean, what else can he do in that situation? Maybe he could have said more, but, it would probably be better if there was a livestream with Linus and Steve talking in-room.

I think GN has valid points, and I hope that LMG takes what has happened, turn things for good, and get back on a good track. It just may take time.

He could definitely have done more in the situation. First of all, he could not frame LMG as the victim here by saying things like "...it saddens me how quickly the pitchforks were raised over this. It also comes across as a touch hypocritical when some basic due diligence could have helped clarify much of it," and "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." The community is upset that the largest tech channel on YouTube is deteriorating and providing more and more misinformation, and while there are certainly more extreme voices out there, their response is completely reasonable, but Linus sounds like a disappointed parent instead of taking their concerns seriously.

 

Second, he could address what GN said in their video properly, instead of skirting around the points in the video. All Linus had to do was take accountability for the issues (which he did to some extent) and show that LMG is trying to improve. Instead, it just seems like he's blaming the community. "If you haven't seen the improvement, frankly I wonder if you're really looking for it..." There are improvements, sure, but what about the mistakes GN highlighted in their video? These are not mistakes from a year or multiple years ago, these are recent. What good are the improvements if you're still providing bad information to the community? Why is the information not being improved?

 

"But it's sad and unfortunate when this transparency gets warped into a bad thing." What do you mean, Linus? The problem is that you are churning out videos that are decreasing in quality, this was one of the main points in the GN video. Steve makes a very good point by saying that you can edit out the mistakes you say. Why is it being left in just to add a comment hours later or an asterisk? There's actually zero reason to leave in misinformation. 

 

You ask what else he can do in this situation, well, he certainly could have not posted such a lacklustre response that doesn't address a bulk of the issues GN highlighted. Recently, Linus across multiple WAN Shows laments how he's disappointed in how the community perceives his statement. It has become a consistent thing at this point. I don't know how he hasn't considered that the problem may be with him. He is clearly failing to address things properly and explain clearly, and the language he's using is detrimental.