Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[1982 Original]

I’ve been watching Linus since he was doing unboxings on a park bench. My favorite years of LTT was when the gang was in the house. That was awhile ago. The past few years, the videos have gotten more and more janky with a “just wing it” feel. Sometimes, borderline slapstick. Technical reviews have gone out the window. 
 

I have been enthusiastic for the Lab. I was hoping it would refocus the team on technical reviews again. I even hoped for a new technical reviews channel. But unfortunately, any data the labs produces gets crammed back into those same janky, just winging it, videos. It’s more like two guys goofing around. It’s entertaining, but hardly an avenue to take the data seriously. As I always tell my own kids, there’s a time and place for goofing around, and a time and place to take things serious. 

[bramturismo]

2 minutes ago, RockerBug17 said:

 or end up in court. 

This is something I don't think Billit Labs can afford. Forgive me if I sound like a doom-thinker, but I don't think Billit has the necessary financial means to go so far.

 

[DJ3thenew23]

17 minutes ago, King Podge said:

Except it does and without right of reply the points you made are moot. 

Except right of reply is not a requirement in America nor in Canada, so it is merely a nicety. In this case, GN did not need to be nice and give them a chance to respond since they were using direct quotes and clips. Get off your high horse

[King Podge]

8 minutes ago, coopa said:

I think someone else said it better than I did above. Emphasis mine:
 

 

 

Probably best that you didn’t say it, because it’s contextually incorrect.

 

right of reply still stands, especially when you’re presenting circumstantial conjecture around bias. 
 

 

[RockerBug17]

1 minute ago, Alex T88 said:

That will be a first step. Just like JayzTwoCents did with the botchet 4060 Ti review video and posted a disclaimer video where he explained himself and was trying to make amends, at a time when he was recovering from a major surgery. I guess, LTT doesn't care at all about doing the right thing. Just like they did not care to return the prototype to Billet Labs, instead auctioning it. And now paying off Billet Labs to silence them and to possibly avoid a "MikeRoweSoft" scandal. Is it legal? Probably... Is it moral and ethical? Definitely not. It's egregious and atrocious behaviour. Both from the company and the individual endorsing it. 

Love how you spin it as thought LMG knowingly and willingly sold off Billet's prototype. If they did then they are wrong. But they said they didn't; it was an internal mistake and will be corrected next time a similar situation occurs. The community doesn't care. They want retribution. 

[yobson]

gamers nexus has already posted a response to the response

[RockerBug17]

3 minutes ago, BlackSmokeDMax said:

 

I don't care if the "unwashed masses" are satisfied. I just want better and more transparent policies/actions from LMG. That is what would leave me satisfied. If that means fewer videos that are higher quality, so be it. If they want to stay as just entertainment, then fine carry on. But if so, stop claiming they want to LTT Labs to be the "THING" in quality reviews.

You want a private company to act according to your whims? Recipe for failure right there folks.

[antempus]

6 minutes ago, mrgerry123 said:

Reading some of these comments is crazy, all sorts of personality diagnoses and wild claims flying around. Most of us here are not privy to what the behind the scenes picture is like and what the nuances are which is why airing the issues on the WAN show (or in a more structured video) will help calm the mood, inform, and show the ability to to have an honest discussion with the community.

 

There are several different claims from GN from rushed videos and benchmarking (hardly the biggest crime in the world) to more serious stuff. Addressing at least the more serious claims is an import way to restore and maintain LMG's credibility. I'm not saying GN is 100% right and certainly a conflict of interest due to the competition between a channel like that and labs is possible but sweeping it all under the rug with a couple of forum posts is not a good look.

Coming back after a few hours and seeing the explosive quantity of posts is interesting, though not unexpected given the fairly emotional responses; I do think we all need to temper our temper given that the information was only just brought to the forefront of our collective awareness, the expectations, nay demanding, of a response is not a reasonable. 

I obviously don't speak for everyone, but LMG will need to have a more legitimate follow up one _what_ will be changing and some explanation of _how_ so that the bulk of concerns are addressed; I've experienced growth mode and the side effects that can cause, as such I am empathetic, but LMG will need to ensure that they can solve the current problems before any future ones eclipse that work or effort. 

Everyone that seems to be dropping LMG as a whole because of these errors in their way, intentional or not, but that explosive reaction is not going to help out but what will help out is to remind them that we do want them to do better, we do want them to succeed, and we expect them to keep us looped in more than before. 

[RockerBug17]

1 minute ago, yobson said:

gamers nexus has already posted a response to the response

Of course. The boost to their channel will be tremendous the longer they can keep this ship floating.

[King Podge]

Just now, DJ3thenew23 said:

Except right of reply is not a requirement in America nor in Canada, so it is merely a nicety. In this case, GN did not need to be nice and give them a chance to respond since they were using direct quotes and clips. Get off your high horse

You assume my altitude, how dare you.

 

its only a conditional requirement in Brazil, regardless, its a fundamental journalistic practice and every major news organisation requires it, even if it’s just token.

 

you don’t have to do it, but in this context, it’s opinion and not journalism if you don’t… 

 

again, I don’t make the rules. Complain to the BBC. 

[RockerBug17]

3 minutes ago, bramturismo said:

This is something I don't think Billit Labs can afford. Forgive me if I sound like a doom-thinker, but I don't think Billit has the necessary financial means to go so far.

 

Then that's an assumed risk when they sent their prototype to LMG. The ways they could have lost it are infinite. 

[King Podge]

13 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

When a lot of the issues have already been brought up in the past, and when there are already public statements by the company about certain things...there is less expectation of needing to get a first hand detail on what is wrong.

 

Ultimately the only thing that could have been clarified in the video was the Billet bit; but even then based on what Linus has said nothing really would have changed.  The fact is based on statements Linus  made on this forum in one where I talked about Toyota's role; his reply pretty much solidifies that there is a lack of ethics at LMG and that it also comes from the top.  He doesn't think having Alex flown down CA by Toyota and using press docs from Toyota as something he should disclose...instead  it seems he only views disclosure as being needed when he takes money for some editorial say.

 

GN likely has talked to Linus over the years in regards to the accuracy and not handling it, and then Linus calling out GN on the WAN show pretty much destroyed any chance of getting a fair reply.

And if my grandmother had wheels she’d be a wagon. 

[Reclus]

3 minutes ago, RockerBug17 said:

And people are calling me a conspiracy theorist.

 

If LMG strong armed Billet into a position then I'll retract everything I said. But the FACT is whatever was offered Billet accepted. If not then they'd negotiate more, or end up in court. 

You are either wilfully or blissfully ignorant. Money isn't an all fixing tool in this situation. Billet may come to terms with their loss and compensation. This does not change what LTT has done and why they are scrutinized. LTT's past, present and probably future lies with the viewership of their content. Ignoring it - well... The internet is full of quick rising stars that burned away very fast. Also way to go with the "unwashed masses" - really nails the point here of what a person that offers money instead of explanation is thinking of you.

[yobson]

1 minute ago, RockerBug17 said:

Of course. The boost to their channel will be tremendous the longer they can keep this ship floating.

hopefully pressures LTT to give a proper video response that is more thought out that Linus's post on here

[Haxaclappa]

GN'S response: 

 

[spoonraker]

Nobody cares about my opinion, but what the heck, I'll offer it up anyway.

 

I'm going to put this very simply and not dig into the details of any one particular situation, because for what I want to say, it's unimportant.

 

Simply put, as a long-time viewer, I've found LMG's content has become less engaging over time, and sometime in the last few years in particular, it feels like things have reached a tipping point where I've seriously thought about unsubscribing a number of times. I think I actually did unsubscribe and resubscribe a time or two.

 

Why do I think this is? Well, a lot of it is related to the issues brought up in the GN video, but rather than speculate about your ethics, I'm simply going to try to explain the effect these things have on the videos from the perspective of a viewer.

 

At a high level, LMG videos have started to feel... not worth my time. More clickbait and less substance. It really is that simple. It's a case-by-case basis, but there's a one particular archetype of LMG videos that I used to find engaging that are increasingly becoming not so much: the zany over the top build videos. I'm talking about the videos where you attempt to use car parts to cool a PC, or build your own phase change cooling system, or use a massively over-the-top fan to cool a PC.

 

These videos used to be your bread and butter, but they've started to feel like clickbait to me. Why? Because very often the actual end result is just deeply dissatisfying to watch. These types of videos often start very engaging, outlining a silly scenario, describing a fun solution that you're going to attempt to engineer, and then we get into the actual build and several things often happen, sometimes all of these happen:

• Either the hosts of the video themselves glorify the lack of care for the end result OR Linus comes in and, whether its intentional or not, plays the role of saboteur because he glorifies his lack of concern for the actual planned build
• Even if the above doesn't happen, often some fundamental flaw in the solution is exposed midway through the build and little to no attempt is made at fixing the problem
• The end result winds up being obviously flawed and predictably doesn't perform well

When you put all these things together, it simply breaks the illusion of the video and makes me realize, acutely, that the video was nothing more than clickbait. There was no earnest attempt made to create the elaborate scenario described in the video's title. The title was just there to grab your attention and there was never a possibility of a surprising conclusion. The actual video shows a couple of people who are obviously rushed, lacking resources, with no plan, and little care for the end result, slapping something together, calling out how it's obviously not going to work, watching it not work, and then ending the video with no real conclusion.

 

I understand that these videos are just for entertainment, but please understand, the way you're kneecapping these videos by letting budgets and release schedules eliminate even the possibility of the build being successful is not entertaining to me. 

 

And to further clarify, it's not about the end result... sort of. In the early days, when LMG really was a tiny operation with no budget and no resources, these videos were fun to watch because despite the actual constraints on the build, the attempt was made in earnest to build the thing advertised. Now that LMG is a large business with significant resources, when the same type of builds are attempted and the hosts encounter the same types of problems, when the proposed solutions to the problem are willfully ignoring viable alternatives that LMG now has due to its increased budget and resources, it breaks the illusion. This is no longer a guy in his garage constrained by a reality. This is a guy in a multi million dollar machine shop choosing duct tape to fix a problem for absolutely no reason, or worse, choosing to simply not fix a problem. Sometimes the lack of preparation becomes obvious. Sometimes the time pressure becomes obvious. Sometimes the lack of concern for the end result becomes obvious. Sometimes it's all of it.

 

The point is, whatever the reason, and I'm sure there's multiple complicated inter-related reasons, many of your videos leave me feeling dissatisfied rather than entertained. I don't have much of a tolerance for clickbait and I'm disappointed by how often your videos feel that way these days. It's an easily fixable problem.

 

Linus, listen to what your own employees are telling you. They're begging you for time to build quality into the product. Listen to them. In many of your videos you can feel the disappointment of the presenter with the situation they're in. It's not fun to watch somebody "unbox and first impressions" a product when they are visibly upset by the fact that they obviously only have like 3 minutes to shoot this video and they have no practical ability to come to any meaningful conclusions about the product. 

[wanderingfool2]

13 minutes ago, RockerBug17 said:

Integrity you say? The person with integrity would have been the bigger man and done what was right no matter the consequence.

 

I'll leave you to decide who lacks integrity. 

Congratulations, you don't understand a thing.

 

 

LMG doesn't have integrity.  If they did, they would have corrected their 30 seconds of discussing the price of Infinite Cables when they were off by the price by a factor of 5x.  Like claiming a $5000+ cable was sub $1000; even going as far as "checking the invoice" jokes because it was so cheap.  I looked at the cable at the time, and posted my findings here and they were ignored.  

 

They are the ones who had gotten Alex flown down to report on the Toyota Mirai and didn't think of disclosing.
 

When talking about facts and correcting facts, yes LMG has no integrity in my viewpoint.

 

It doesn't matter if you think that GN should have reached out, that's a drop in the hat compared to the issues he brought up...even if you think not contacting Linus first (after Linus publicly called him out, without contacting GN as well) was a big deal; it doesn't invalidate any of what was said as what GN said is overall true.  So go by what Buffalo Springfield said "Nobodies right if everybody's wrong"

 

13 minutes ago, RockerBug17 said:

n regard to the water-block, people here are saying LMG did Billet wrong by selling/auctioning off their prototype they wanted back. 100% agree; egregious error. LMG and Billet discuss the situation and come to an agreement that both are satisfied with. LMG doesn't try to hide the fact that they messed up and they make a public statement about it. NO ONE HERE IS SATISFIED WITH THE STATEMENT!

Don't confuse being paid for a prototype as "both are satisfied".  I've seen more than enough of my fair share of business encounters where they aren't satisfied but an agreement is reached because the smaller party just doesn't have the resources to essentially fight it out (or that it would in general cost them more to not settle even if it's a bad settlement).

 

There's only so many mess up's people are also willing to take.  How many times now have we seen Linus come out saying things like he was wrong, and that he will do better.  He clearly doesn't learn his lessons and doesn't change things to make things better.  Like the time he spouted off major inaccuracies about Musk on the WAN show, which was statements made by his writers, then the next WAN show he was forced to correct all the mistakes...then he proceeded to puke up more inaccuracies.  So yea, I think people are finally realizing that LMG isn't that "trust me bro" type of company Linus paints themselves as.

 

Linus' response also very much read of the insulting GN; instead of an apology and pledge to do better.

[RichardBirch]

Comment removed - commentary based on potentially incorrect information.

[Alex T88]

1 minute ago, RockerBug17 said:

Love how you spin it as thought LMG knowingly and willingly sold off Billet's prototype. If they did then they are wrong. But they said they didn't; it was an internal mistake and will be corrected next time a similar situation occurs. The community doesn't care. They want retribution

It's called damage control and blatant lying. Excuse me, if I refuse to believe such nonsense. They are digging themselves or at least Linus is digging himself and his company, deeper into an hole. It's a bloody prototype, a one of a kind exemplary, which they agreed to return to Billet Labs on the 30th of June. A month later they auction it. "Mistake"... what are they ?! 5 year olds running a 100 million company. This is BS and gaslighting at it's finest, which is sickening. I might have believed them if they had forgotten it in a warehouse. But not auctioning a one of a kind piece and saying they made a mistake. Making a mistake is when he drops stuff (even though he might be doing it on purpose sometimes). This was definitely made on purpose, because why not. Exactly like they did with the review. Doing everything in their power to discredit Billet Labs. Some would say, that someone might have had a hidden agenda. And the sheer hypocrisy about not changing his conclusion about the prototype even if they did right by Billet Labs and reviewing it as intended... coming from the guy who uses his pool to water cool a PC. Ridiculous !

[LostInferno]

18 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.

Respond to this on the WAN show. Make it all about how much better your GPU reviews have been with embargoes and how you see these mistakes are just that, honest mistakes. Talk about your commitment to making better, deeper, and more valuable reviews with LTT Labs. Did the new CEO recommend you not speak about it on the WAN show? If so, why? If not, share this conversation about how LTT believes it should respond to un-journalistic hit pieces. Only through forum replies? 

 

I want to know about these "mistakes" and how you are successfully overcoming them. If I can't notice how much better LTT reviews have gotten I hope I'm not banned from pointing out how I skip conclusions and check for the performance graphs of products in your review. I want to make my own decision based on quality testing and easy-to-digest performance graphs to get what I need and want from a product. If I don't watch a whole video from beginning to end, does my request for a response become invalid?

 

I'm not asking for a response to create more drama (If that happens oh well). I'm asking for one because I want LTT to be a great test labs resource. It's hard for me to believe it if you are "too tired" to respond to day zero complaints about your testing data charts. I want to hear more about LTT labs and that you plan to make killer testing content. I am excited about it. Keep reminding me that you're all in on making exceptional lab data available to the public. 

[MartyS]

I haven't read every reply here but there was one thing that caught my attention on the WAN show during the rambling justification for not spending more time on the Billet Labs video.  It was a quick mention that if people spent more time on that video they wouldn't be working on another one, and that might lower their bonuses if they didn't meet their quotas.  This was the clearest sign to me that they are completely focused on quantity over quality.

 

This is fine for entertainment, but not if you want to pivot into providing accurate consumer data on products.

 

It's odd that they are willing to spend a lot of money and time to correct the issues with the backpack but don't seem to be willing to put quality control procedures in place to fix their video content before publication when things go wrong. 

 

My dad worked as a quality control manager his whole life, the pattern was always the same, small company wants a good quality product, as it grows it would not grow the quality control department proportionally to production, quality of the product drops and so do sales, and the first department to get laid off would be quality control. Then my dad would be looking for another company to work for, and usually a year or 2 later the previous company would be gone.

 

 

[RockerBug17]

2 minutes ago, Reclus said:

You are either wilfully or blissfully ignorant. Money isn't an all fixing tool in this situation. Billet may come to terms with their loss and compensation. This does not change what LTT has done and why they are scrutinized. LTT's past, present and probably future lies with the viewership of their content. Ignoring it - well... The internet is full of quick rising stars that burned away very fast. Also way to go with the "unwashed masses" - really nails the point here of what a person that offers money instead of explanation is thinking of you.

Compensated Billet for prototype 

Acknowledge LMG shortcomings

Promise to do better in the future 

 

What more could they possibly do at this point?

[BlackSmokeDMax]

9 minutes ago, RockerBug17 said:

You want a private company to act according to your whims? Recipe for failure right there folks.

 

I want them to act just how Linus always says they will act.

[yobson]

4 minutes ago, RichardBirch said:

Watching at 2x speed hence my quick reply - wow. There was NOTHING from LMG to Billet Labs until this video went live.

 

That's an open a shut case right there. Utterly staggering. This keeps getting worse somehow.

quite shocking, made even worse by the fact that it seems linus's response was specifically worded to mislead people into thinking this was previously settled with billet labs prior to the GN video.

[zeroality]

1 minute ago, RockerBug17 said:

Compensated Billet for prototype 

Acknowledge LMG shortcomings

Promise to do better in the future 

 

What more could they possibly do at this point?

So Compensating for the prototype is a lie from LMG. Proof from Billet themselves: 

Yeah I'm done with LMG wondering if I can return my backpack and my 3d down jacket