Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[ImorallySourcedElectrons]

17 minutes ago, fjyrin said:

sorry, let me make sure I have this right. are you complaining that hardware reviewers are going to be worried about publishing accurate data?

No, they're going to be worried about a moral crusade from Steve who'll unleash his outraged minions that lack any nuance or reasonableness.

[Why_Me]

5 minutes ago, ImorallySourcedElectrons said:

No, they're going to be worried about a moral crusade from Steve who'll unleash his outraged minions that lack any nuance or reasonableness.

Good ... this should motivate the reviewers to give accurate reviews.

[itchie]

wasn't the point of labs was to help give more accuracy to reviews?

seems like they tripped pretty good coming out of the gate but i mean shouldn't we as a community give them time?

did linus ever say that the second labs was involved everything would be perfect?

i thought he said it would be a process and now we're not giving him any time, just immediate 100% accuracy or gtfo?

are other reviews somehow ok to not be accurate since they don't have labs?

isn't that just telling them that they shouldn't strive for accuracy so nobody cares when it's innaccurate? "it's not like we had it in a lab or anything so can't blame us".

 

i mean should we push for more accuracy in reviews overall? yeah, absolutely.

should we chastize the people who try to give us what we want just because it's not instant? probably not.

 

if you're saying hold them accountable; i agree fully. if you're saying unsub, they're awful, don't give them money, don't watch content, full boycott; nah bro i want better reviews not a reason to grab a pitchfork.

[IHAVOKI]

2 hours ago, Blademaster91 said:

I don't see that, I think the concern is LMG is going to use their labs so they can sound like a better source of data than anyone else because they're throwing tons of money at a lab and testing equpiment, but not taking the time to make sure the data is as a accurate as possible. If LMG puts up data that isn't accurate people will repeat misinformation then assume other channels like GN is wrong because they don't have a massive testing lab.

I went through the GN video again, and he didn't, but IMO that still wouldn't have changed anything, I don't think Steve had to be nice about it.

Do you think the opposite hypothetically does Linus need to be nice either? 

[Guest]

46 minutes ago, fjyrin said:

sorry, let me make sure I have this right. are you complaining that hardware reviewers are going to be worried about publishing accurate data?

Exactly yes. This is what happen when you weponize cancel culture.

[Blademaster91]

3 minutes ago, IHAVOKI said:

Do you think the opposite hypothetically does Linus need to be nice either? 

No I don't think Linus needs to and I wouldn't expect him to, because he wasn't with the "trust me bro" issue, and I think Linus wasn't exactly being nice with the video that felt like "sorry but not sorry we're going to make jokes and monetize the video".  No one has to be nice over this and I wouldn't expect them to have a nice discussion as Linus threw shade at them on the WAN show.

31 minutes ago, ImorallySourcedElectrons said:

nuance or reasonableness.

Thats ironic as you've only been bashing on GN.

[McGherkin]

I think the main lesson that needs to be learned here is that if GN points out that you are making mistakes far too often, and you sold someone’s property….

 

Just apologise and make it right. Done.

 

If Linus hadn’t gone in hard, doubling down on things he was clearly caught out on, frankly none of this would have happened.

[TechDeckCAD]

2 hours ago, 3m3m said:

No, but we do expect him to act professionally.

 

Contacting anyone at LMG would have resulted in an interview, an opportunity to correct the problem and create goodwill between channels in the tech space.

 

Now you are going to have people that will be terrified to speak, reach out and or tell their stories. This was a net loss for the industry not just LMG and GN. Any small channel that doesn't get it perfectly right has reason to fear GN. How is this a good thing? What GN did was threaten the entire tech industry all channels both big and small to shut up, and not publish their findings for fear of being cancelled. How is this a good thing?

 

If GN wanted to act for the good of the consumer he would have acted for the good of the consumer. He acted for the good of his channel and it worked. His sub count is up, he will profit from it if not already he will in future. So did he do this out of the goodness of his own heart? No. GN both wanted and needed cloud. They needed the next Noah Katz story. So they created one. LTT is in the reformative stage GN knew it he had to act fast so he did. His actions speak volumes don't be fooled.

 

Contacting anyone at LMG and them being allowed to use GN as their mouthpiece, would have resulted in people saying that GN is being biased towards LMG/LTT due to their history together, and that GN had an incentive to "protect" the organization. This would've called GN's professionalism into question and completely destroyed Stephen saying that he operates in fair and ethical boundaries. The fact that you can't even recognize this is insanely ironic, given your complaint about him somehow not acting professionally. Furthermore, LMG/LTT was given enough notice to correct their behaviour w/ Billet Labs and it took until GN's video for something to actually be done about the copper block situation (by then it was too late, the product was auctioned).

 

"Now you're gonna have people terrified to speak, reach out and tell their stories." This is peak slippery slope fallacy, and shows you either didn't pay attention to GN's explanation, or you're being ridiculously obtuse. To make this abundantly clear, the issue isn't about "getting things perfect", the issue is you can't act like your conclusions are valid when testing methodology is invalid (and Linus unfortunately made this clear that it was an economic issue of not wanting to pay to correct the video, despite the fact that they clearly have the resources to do so). Fitting a copper block onto a GPU that it was never designed for, and then calling it a bad product, means that your testing methodology is wrong. 1mm of a gap between the die and the heatsink is a gigantic and will show completely different efficiency metrics. I've said this example before, but this is akin to someone calling a PS4 heatsink trash because they used it on a PS5 and claim that their logic is perfectly sound, and therefore shouldn't be revised.

 

If anything, LMG/LTT should be the one concerned here. The record of erroneous conclusions + data, and two negative experiences with small companies providing a copper block and mouse, is going to lead to lost goodwill (at least temporarily until they show improvement), on top of already dealing with viewers taking that information with a huge grain of salt. Stuff like this, can completely destroy your credibility as a reviewer.

[venomtail]

1 hour ago, ImorallySourcedElectrons said:

No, they're going to be worried about a moral crusade from Steve who'll unleash his outraged minions that lack any nuance or reasonableness.

Whilst blindsided mob justice is a problem in many things, especially the tech world and its communities, describing the whole situation this week merely as a Steve crusade and his blind followers is real negligence. People have been complaining about this for ages now, years even. Steve's just the first one who has enough credibility, who had enough balls to voice his thoughts that everyone already had.

[RubenCordeiro]

TL;DR

 

Thank you Gamers Nexus. Ball is on LTT's court now.

[Wasabi.jp]

1 hour ago, 3m3m said:

GN should have considered what this will do to the tech industry. There is no debate. Now every creator has to worry "Is my sample correct is my conclusion correct will I get cancelled". That killed the tech space in my book. GN could have done a lot better and the result would have been awesome! But no... Here we are.

GN videos were needed for this result as we all want good quality videos.
If Steve did that behind the scene, we will not had the same reaction.

It is a good thing, now LTT will take it more seriously (see LTT last video)

[ImorallySourcedElectrons]

1 hour ago, Why_Me said:

Good ... this should motivate the reviewers to give accurate reviews.

No, what this sort of behaviour causes instead is fear and mental health issues. There's a reason why you'd be called a douchebag if you did offline what Gamers Nexus just did to LTT.

 

44 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

 

Thats ironic as you've only been bashing on GN.

May I suggest a dictionary? That ain't what ironic means. I also didn't send a whole army of minions at Gamers Nexus, nor have I alleged that they steal things, nor have I alleged that he takes money from anyone, ...

 

12 minutes ago, venomtail said:

Whilst blindsided mob justice is a problem in many things, especially the tech world and its communities, describing the whole situation this week merely as a Steve crusade and his blind followers is real negligence. People have been complaining about this for ages now, years even. Steve's just the first one who has enough credibility, who had enough balls to voice his thoughts that everyone already had.

Come back in two weeks and actually read what's being said by many people here, this is blindsided mob justice at the behest of Steve, and he's had other targets in the past as well. If you speak to a large crowd, you got to think about these sort of things.

[Awsmkiid13]

10 hours ago, 24Pinned said:

How long had they had the cooler post testing without returning it? What happened to the 3090ti that was sent along with it but not used for testing? Why did it take weeks to get to the point that they not only realized they lost it, but had sold it?

 

He was willing to pay them on the tenth. After mishandling their items, failing to use half of them, absolutely trashing them and doubling down on it, losing the card, selling the cooler, and then finally owning up to it on the tenth.  

 

Then his apology where he wants them to eat, but you know not by reaching anyone who might afford the "supercar" that is the product. I'm not sure why you're hung up on the fact that he mishandled an email that showed he was willing to pay a few days before LMG got exposed, instead of putting it on the pile of one more thing that was mishandled. The person he sent it to in procurement didn't do anything about it either. 

 

So the question is really, with a pattern of clumsy testing, community bashing, and Trust Me Bro antics, why are you trying to defend him on this one thing? 

Not trying to defend anyone, my point was, it was beeing handled or looked into way before Steve put up his video. But here is the funny thing, Steve has done this before, putting a spotlight on other people or companies for wrongdoeings and yet he could not have given LTT that same chance. Again not defending, just stating the obvious. What LMG did was wrong, thrue and thrue, but stuff like this happends alot. And yes I work in logistics, so I can see how the flow of information was not so good. 

 

My twocents is that like someone else wrote before, that Steve needed this to blow up for his own gain, and for that I unsubed to GN.

[Guest]

48 minutes ago, TechDeckCAD said:

Contacting anyone at LMG and them being allowed to use GN as their mouthpiece, would have resulted in people saying that GN is being biased towards LMG/LTT due to their history together, and that GN had an incentive to "protect" the organization. This would've called GN's professionalism into question and completely destroyed Stephen saying that he operates in fair and ethical boundaries. The fact that you can't even recognize this is insanely ironic, given your complaint about him somehow not acting professionally. Furthermore, LMG/LTT was given enough notice to correct their behaviour w/ Billet Labs and it took until GN's video for something to actually be done about the copper block situation (by then it was too late, the product was auctioned).

 

"Now you're gonna have people terrified to speak, reach out and tell their stories." This is peak slippery slope fallacy, and shows you either didn't pay attention to GN's explanation, or you're being ridiculously obtuse. To make this abundantly clear, the issue isn't about "getting things perfect", the issue is you can't act like your conclusions are valid when testing methodology is invalid (and Linus unfortunately made this clear that it was an economic issue of not wanting to pay to correct the video, despite the fact that they clearly have the resources to do so). Fitting a copper block onto a GPU that it was never designed for, and then calling it a bad product, means that your testing methodology is wrong. 1mm of a gap between the die and the heatsink is a gigantic and will show completely different efficiency metrics. I've said this example before, but this is akin to someone calling a PS4 heatsink trash because they used it on a PS5 and claim that their logic is perfectly sound, and therefore shouldn't be revised.

 

If anything, LMG/LTT should be the one concerned here. The record of erroneous conclusions + data, and two negative experiences with small companies providing a copper block and mouse, is going to lead to lost goodwill (at least temporarily until they show improvement), on top of already dealing with viewers taking that information with a huge grain of salt. Stuff like this, can completely destroy your credibility as a reviewer.

Right, so what about the people GN visited, and interviewed before LTT? Then we can say the same about that situation as well.

 

Fun fact, all of us here can think for ourselves. We know if GN went to LTT to address these situations it was serious enough to be addressed. We know GN will keep LTT accountable if they promise anything and we know they will make a video if those promises wasn't kept.

 

No one would have seen GN as a mouthpiece because of its integrity. Now we can't respect them because they lost that integrity. We can't respect them because they weaponized cancel culture. We can't respect GN because of poor journalistic choices. GN want to be the boogeyman. The problem is with the boogyman people will work around them and not with them. Newer channels will not easily publish their data regardless of accuracy because they fear backlash if they get a bad sample or if something went wrong with their testing. This is bad because now we only get cherry-picked data. This essentially made the entire industry useless to us as consumers.

 

A good interview with bullet points pointing at the problems would have been the right way to do this. I don't need a kick in the face when I make a mistake. No one does. GN kicked LTT in the face. Rather than opening communication make a really good video out of it all that all of us could accept and understand. Now we have a divided tech space and that will do what exactly?

 

As a business person, as a human being as a critical thinker, I will never accept that what GN did was the answer. LTT is still guilty make no mistake. But this is not how stuff gets fixed. When you walk into a room and conduct an interview you respect the other person. You hear their side of the story you hear the concerns you work towards a solution you build something up. GN did nothing of the sort.

 

[Couchy47]

On 8/15/2023 at 4:47 AM, Alexeygridnev1993 said:

If you want to say something negative about Apple or Microsoft, you do it publicly in a review, not try to privately call Tim Cook or Satya Nadella to tell them about your concerns. Why LMG should be treated any differently? They are a big corporation with big profits and a big impact on the industry, not a bunch of goofy YouTubers making silly videos

I agree that there's no rule saying GN should address the issues privately first, but considering the personal relationships between GN team and LMG I believe it's very unprofessional and disrespectful to make so many bold claims publically without an opportunity for further context or clarification. Steve has even in the past given the opportunity for clarification from the accused and approached them privately before making a public statement. He did this in the NZXT power supply debacle, and then made a few videos after he failed to get any reasonable action from them.

 

As is in law, it's fair to hear from both sides before making any conclusions, and I think GN has unfairly failed to uphold this ideology, regardless if the conclusion was the same.

 

I do believe GN intentions to be positive, and I do agree with most of his claims, but the way its been handled just shouts invoking drama. If LMG failed to action their flaws or demonstrated no accountability to GN when called out in private, then by all means make a public statement of this magnitude to get some action.

[kaiju_wars]

Now that's it's been a couple days, my take is that, yeah, I'm glad GN called out LTT.  Could it have been done better?  Sure, but it needed to be done.

 

LTT's inaccuracies are part of the reason I stopped watching LTT altogether.  Their employee(s?) trying to call out GN and HU on testing and accuracy was laughable at best. What they did to Billet Labs was just disgusting, and how they reviewed that mouse was also laughable, especially since from certain angles on the video for it, you can tell there's still plastic on the feet. 

 

Linus's rant on here was just a nothing burger, it was gaslight, gatekeep, (attempt at) girlboss. He felt attacked and considering how passionate he is about LMG, I can understand why.  But having watched GN's original video a couple times now, it's clear he wasn't attacking LTT, he was voicing his concerns.  He mentioned during the warranty debacle that LTT/LMG would be treated like any other corporation from then on, and that's what he did. 

 

Steve's follow up also wasn't bad, it was straight to the point, he said what he had to say, and left the ball in LTT's court. 

 

As for that apology video...

Lmao, lol even.

It is one of the videos of all time. Idk what it is about it, it felt forced. Some of it felt genuine, most of it felt fake AF. The new CEO being front and center at the beginning was smart, I felt since the beginning of this whole thing he should have been the one doing the talking, not Linus. The first joke about sponsors was fine, I know a lot of people have been arguing about that on reddit and twitter.  Breaks up the tension and eases the viewer into a video with a heavy topic. The LTT store plug, and showing off a new screwdriver color wave people can buy though? Not the time and/or place, and made most of the video feel fake and like "we just want to put this behind us, buy our merch uwu," and the sponsor joke again at the end was a little much, but that's not as egregious as the LTT store plug/ad, or the monitizing of the video itself. Luke and the new CEO felt genuine to me, so did Yvonne. Someone should have kept Linus on a tighter leash though, or not had him in the video at all, he just went right back to gaslight, gatekeep, (attempt at) girlboss. 

 

As for the Madison situation, I don't have a huge opinion on it yet, I hope her the best, and I won't attack her or go after her or LTT over the allegations, I'll simply wait to see how that plays out in court (if it goes to court or settlement).

 

All in all, I feel like GN did the youtube tech community a favor, a lot of viewers had been saying this stuff to LTT for a long time, so have their employees apparently according to the "employees answers" video, but Linus and other leadership didn't listen until a peer of theirs in the community called them on it.

[DestructiveLlama]

After hearing Colton's side of the story, doesn't it make sense that there was a miscommunication?

 

From what I understood, LTT was allowed to keep the prototype until Billet saw the negative review and told them to send it back. Then there was an email failure right before LTX and the prototype ended up on the auction floor.

 

Definitely a terrible mistake among several mistakes, but I don't think this warranted a hit piece.

 

I think GNs video would have benefitted greatly if they got a response from LTT.

 

Glad Yvonne and Terren are slowing the videos down though. Definitely needed to be done.

[Why_Me]

7 minutes ago, 3m3m said:

Right, so what about the people GN visited, and interviewed before LTT? Then we can say the same about that situation as well.

 

Fun fact, all of us here can think for ourselves. We know if GN went to LTT to address these situations it was serious enough to be addressed. We know GN will keep LTT accountable if they promise anything and we know they will make a video if those promises wasn't kept.

 

No one would have seen GN as a mouthpiece because of its integrity. Now we can't respect them because they lost that integrity. We can't respect them because they weaponized cancel culture. We can't respect GN because of poor journalistic choices. GN want to be the boogeyman. The problem is with the boogyman people will work around them and not with them. Newer channels will not easily publish their data regardless of accuracy because they fear backlash if they get a bad sample or if something went wrong with their testing. This is bad because now we only get cherry-picked data. This essentially made the entire industry useless to us as consumers.

 

A good interview with bullet pointing the problems would have been the right way to do this. I don't need a kick in the face when I make a mistake. No one does. GN kicked LTT in the face. Rather than opening communication make a really good video out of it all that all of us could accept and understand. Now we have a divided tech space and that will do what exactly?

 

As a business person, as a human being as a critical thinker, I will never accept that what GN did was the answer. LTT is still guilty make no mistake. But this is not how stuff gets fixed. When you walk into a room and conduct an interview you respect the other person. You hear their side of the story you hear the concerns you work towards a solution you build something up. GN did nothing of the sort.

 

GN pointed out flaws with LTT and LTT responded (think trainwreck). 

[Why_Me]

4 minutes ago, OverjoyedDonut said:

After hearing Colton's side of the story, doesn't it make sense that there was a miscommunication?

 

From what I understood, LTT was allowed to keep the prototype until Billet saw the negative review and told them to send it back. Then there was an email failure right before LTX and the prototype ended up on the auction floor.

 

Definitely a terrible mistake among several mistakes, but I don't think this warranted a hit piece. I think GNs video would have benefitted greatly if they got a response from LTT.

 

Glad Yvonne and Terren are slowing the videos down though. Definitely needed to be done.

Did you even watch the vids? The water block wasn't the only issue.

[DestructiveLlama]

Just now, Why_Me said:

GN pointed out flaws with LTT and LTT responded (think trainwreck). 

Linus learned why big companies don't let employees respond on behalf of the company. Communication teams exist for this very reason.

[Godiwa]

9 hours ago, Biomancer81 said:

Hey Steve, nice to see you here. It is weird the only activity you have on here has to deal with this topic or Alternatives to LTT.

 

If that is what you are interested in, why are you still here 7 years after joining. By all means go elsewhere.

Hi Fool,

My name is not Steve... and I am not even American Either...

Have a nice day Fool...

[DestructiveLlama]

Just now, Why_Me said:

Did you even watch the vids? The water block wasn't the only issue.

I agree that it wasn't the only issue. I alluded to that in my brain dump when I mentioned that the videos slowing down is a good thing.

 

[Why_Me]

1 minute ago, OverjoyedDonut said:

Linus learned why big companies don't let employees respond on behalf of the company. Communication teams exist for this very reason.

Linus had a chance to personally respond and he did.

[DestructiveLlama]

1 minute ago, Why_Me said:

Linus had a chance to personally respond and he did.

And hopefully Terren never lets him do it again. Hope Luke is ready to stop Linus from speaking on WAN show from now on.

[Guest]

17 minutes ago, Couchy47 said:

I agree that there's no rule saying GN should address the issues privately first, but considering the personal relationships between GN team and LMG I believe it's very unprofessional and disrespectful to make so many bold claims publically without an opportunity for further context or clarification. Steve has even in the past given the opportunity for clarification from the accused and approached them privately before making a public statement. He did this in the NZXT power supply debacle, and then made a few videos after he failed to get any reasonable action from them.

 

As is in law, it's fair to hear from both sides before making any conclusions, and I think GN has unfairly failed to uphold this ideology, regardless if the conclusion was the same.

 

I do believe GN intentions to be positive, and I do agree with most of his claims, but the way its been handled just shouts invoking drama. If LMG failed to action their flaws or demonstrated no accountability to GN when called out in private, then by all means make a public statement of this magnitude to get some action.

A recorded interview that is going to be published is not private. GN did this before did they not? Did they not travel out of pocket sat down with decision-makers of that company and spoke to them about the situation? They did I respect them for that piece of journalism. Why? Because they build something, they created something people can understand and use. What did they do here? Why was the same courtesy not extended to LTT?

 

GN know how to do this right. They made a choice not to do that. That is my problem. Imagine if LTT could have spoken face to face and truly explained everything and was given the opportunity to make commitments. Then GN could have said, right we WILL keep you accountable and do. That would have been constructive and awesome as a video and real respect all around. Now we have mud-slinging, cancel culture and division. How is this good?

 

Let us agree on this Both sides could have done a better job. I have a life to live I am done with this.