Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[confusion8519]

3 minutes ago, ayysub said:

why? now, based of Linus' weak response, we now know his true colours. he only cares about his bottom line. 

I feel like this isn't necessarily his true colors, it seems more like he was replying in a defensive state of mind, especially considering he replied only a few hours after the GN video went live. He had a similar issue when there was that whole SA allegation on twitter and he lashed out. He needs to just stay quiet on the matter and think it through and address this on the WAN show or something after he has time to think about it. I feel like he really does care about his community, but he's terrible at damage control. 

[ZilyanasDad]

His response yesterday is just digging himself a deeper hole. The success has clearly gone to his head and now he's too arrogant to see mistakes and take the input and use it to better himself and LMG. 

[InvaderMig]

1 minute ago, harls said:

Linus may be full of Shit.  Maybe LMG was having internal talks on how to address the issue.  The point is we do not know and LMG should have been given the opportunity to refute any claims made against them.  If they had no way to refute anything then people could trust the story. 

 

As it is now I fully believe LMG made some massive fuckups that they need to make right and GN is trying to spin things to bring down LMG because he is hurt over  the comment and that LMG is coming into his space. 

 

DUDE!!  Linus had every damn opportunity to clarify his case in the letter to the community, and instead made it sound like GN didn't reach out and if he did he'd have known they were already trying to handle it.  That according to the company is a FREAKING LIE.  His response to GN not reaching out is to lie in a letter to the community??!?!!?!    DUDE seriously man, come on.  Why not just say that in the letter then.  The company still has received no payment and nothing is officially agreed upon.  Linus made it sound like it was a done deal when the lines of communication were only opened yesterday and they are still discussing how what the compensation is.  I'm blown away by the level of parasocial behavior on this site, though I guess I shouldn't be.  His response is terrible, and to add to it he tried to skew the facts to make him self look better only digging himself deeper into the hole.  It's unreal that anyone can just keep trying to engage in mental gymnastics for this.

[MotherboardsInThePark]

Just now, LinusTechLies said:

Maybe it's because Linus knows that this forum receives the least amount of traffic.

 

Hence he made his only reply here.

 

Thats why he's radio silent on all his other platform's because damage control is easier on a forum thats only active when there's drama.

Unfortunately for him, this has already gone viral.

[SignatureSigner]

5 minutes ago, ayysub said:

why? now, based of Linus' weak response, we now know his true colours. he only cares about his bottom line. 

That just means he's running a business. Anyone who believes a business is for your benefit is lying to themselves. When it comes down to it a business exists purly to make money.

[kratos87]

Created an account just to say that I totally agree. One think that disgust me is arrogance, always, period. bye.

[Nucleosynthesis]

As a 10-year viewer, I specifically made this account to convey my disappointment in LTT and Linus' response.

 

I was really hoping that the GN video would kindle competition for quality in the hardware review space. Instead, we got a childish response from an entitled millionaire with a victim complex.

 

This is not the Linus from 10 years ago that I really liked. I so hope that he sees the light after a night's sleep. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[bz16_]

  

Just now, m9x3mos said:

They should have done that before Linus made his post here.

I agree that his response to this thread was poor and didn't take ownership of the issues that were raised.

I guess in a way Linus is caught off guard too by the exposé. I don't really know what to say here... either he responded really poorly out of frustration, or like GN's accusation, he's showing his true colors out of frustration.

 

You know, I do wish this thing can have a competent resolution. LTT does make entertaining videos and show off cool stuff out of my league, it does feed 120+ people and delivers good quality merch; if his passion for an unbiased and accurate review database is real, I'd really hate to see that dream he painted for him and us crash and burn because of (granted quite a lot of) human negligence. Again, it's gonna be a hard climb to get back to where they were.

 

[Calzz]

7 minutes ago, fohatadri said:

Well, I think it was purely personal for Steve to attack LMG, or specifically to attack Linus. I don't think I will change this opinion.
From my personal experience, saying "sorry" to anything and everything always is never enough for people. This is specifically why cancel culture is so dangerous. Instead of letting the natural flow let it fix everything, Steve "canceled" LMG instead of trying to work with them or at least express his concerns to him privately, then if a response from LMG is extremely poor, ignoring the problems and etc. - release a video similar to what he did now. But he did not contact LMG, did he?
Everyone with at least one brain cell in their head knows that Steve did this for clout.

Also, it is so in human nature to fight back when someone attacks you. CEO or not. 

First off there was no personal attack on LMG or anything he wasnt the only person to make comments about it he was just the most public response.

You are right that sorry doesnt fix anything and that its not enough as why would a single word be enough to fix anything. What people want to see is someone that is truly sorry and what are the next steps to fix it. Sorry is not enough but a fix or at least an attempt to fix the problem is what people want to see.

I personally feel that Steve should of reached out to LMG about the video before making it however he is right when he says he doesnt really need to, also him not reaching out doesnt excuse what happened and what LMG have done.

[JesterTechStuff]

12 minutes ago, snkiz said:

No I did not. I'm not supporting Steve's witch hunt. The first one was enough.

This is actually a hilarious comment considering in a recent Wan Show Linus mentioned he doesn't like "toxic support" where supporters blindly support their favourite creators and not criticizing them when they should. You are choosing to completely ignore the reasoning GN provides for not contacting Linus beforehand in order to remain "loyal" to Linus. 

[LinusTechLies]

3 minutes ago, harls said:

Where did Linus blatantly lie?

He literally lied about the auction timeline and that they were in contact with the water block creators. Come now it's all in Steve's second video.

[VisibleXela]

5 minutes ago, ScoggsUK said:

It's conjecture as you don't have confirmation it's been sold. You can infer that's been sold, but you report it as fact. And if your taking an opinion you should reach out for comment. Simple. Inferring without confirmation is not a fact. 

Ok, how about I ask two questions, then:

• Where in the video does GN state that the block was sold? I see where Steve says it was put up for auction (easily verifiable) and that LMG told Billet it was gone (verifiable by Billet), when does he say the block was sold?
• Would the block not being auctioned off for charity (but instead lost, damaged, or stolen from LMG in that case, since LMG specifically told Billet they didn't have it anymore) absolve Linus or LMG of guilt and/or make them look better?

[AamirA]

2 minutes ago, harls said:

Where did Linus blatantly lie?

Linus said he had already negotiated with Billet labs payment compensation for the block. GamersNexus later connected Billet labs who said this was not true at all. Linus only contacted them after the video and they hadn't even responded to his offer yet

[Reclus]

2 minutes ago, Thepyrodex said:

 

But even if that was said 99% of the outraged people here wouldn't change their minds about what is "true".  People here want blood not an apology and its hilarious to see this

 

That is what Linus had a chance to say bud didn't. Spare me the BS 99% talk. Your implications or theories are meaningless because we have evidence and facts presented. Absolutely embarrassing this fanboying club of LTT... 

[craigjennings]

I've been a long time viewer of LTT's videos and reader of these forums, but  had to sign up today just to post this. 

 

It's not just Steve at Gamer's Nexus -- many of the community have been frustrated with the mistakes and lack of improvement in quality of testing.  After reading @LinusTech's response, I'm more upset than before.

 

I don't know that you understand value of keeping the trust of your viewers. In business, it's absolutely everything. I work in software, and it's not any single bug that kills software, it's the regressions -- things that used to work, but now don't, and the bugs that keep coming back after being fixed. That kills a company's reputation and the market for their product.  To correct this crisis, you must first understand the size of the issue, and then you have to be ready to take the steps to fix the problem and the customer relationships.  From Linus's response, LMG isn't there yet on either point. 

Quote

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.

No Linus, this is not about you being called out for wearing your imperfection on your sleeve, and it's not transparency being warped into a bad thing.  This is actually LMG being held accountable for incorrect data and misinformation. You made serious mistakes. You've done it multiple times. That makes it a pattern. And now you're being held accountable, not just by Steve at Gamer's Nexus but by many here too.  

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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... 

Hang on -- the way you've phrased this makes it sound like *we're* somehow in the wrong. The burden of proof of your accuracy is on you, not your customers. Also, "haven't you seen how much I've improved" is what a child says when bringing home a D after an F on their last report card. Congratulations on the improvement, but so much more to be done here. 

 

Quote

I'm sorry I got the community's priorities mixed-up on this one

Stop blaming the community's response on the one Billet Labs video. The camel's back is breaking, and it's not due to just that one last straw. It's the sheer weight of the entire pile. 

 

The community's priorities are always going to be accurate quality information on the products you review. If LTT is merely an entertainment channel, we'd appreciate it if you just say so up-front so we can look somewhere else for objective and accurate testing and information.

 

Quote

 

With all of this in mind, it saddens me how quickly the pitchforks were raised over this

 

Believe it or not, I'm a real person and so is the rest of my team. 

 

...and we're real people too. Your feelings are hurt? Well frankly, so are ours. That's why some of us in the community raised pitchforks, and we're glad you noticed. Many of us watch your videos for objective info about how to spend what money we can spare on computer gear. We've noticed the mistakes turn into a pattern. No we haven't seen improvement, and yes, we've been looking.

Quote

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.

Will things change at LMG? I guess we can test that... with our posts. Will this "pattern of errors and inadequate response, combined with the community call for overall change"  manage to have an impact? Let's see if anyone at LMG actually understands (or wants to learn) the business value of Customer Trust. 

 

-- Craig 
 

Edited August 15, 2023 by craigjennings
fixing cut/paste error

[jooroth18]

4 minutes ago, ScoggsUK said:

It's conjecture as you don't have confirmation it's been sold. You can infer that's been sold, but you report it as fact. And if your taking an opinion you should reach out for comment. Simple. Inferring without confirmation is not a fact. 

We know its sold and gone because in linus's own statement he is saying he is "paying for it to go away"

 

Meaning he doesnt have it, and is paying Billet the cost of the prototype

[QChoumont]

2 minutes ago, Nachmanowicz said:

I'm not talking about GN. I'm talking about LTT being a tech channel with a heavy emphasis on product reviews. But the majority shareholder has a clear conflict of interest when it comes to laptops because he's an investor in a laptop startup. Simple as that.

Ok, gotcha, you just worded your position too strongly, and as a result, it was brittle. My Failing was to assume that the context was about GamersNexus reviewing LTT. Sorry abou that.

[Nachmanowicz]

1 minute ago, MotherboardsInThePark said:

Unfortunately for him, this has already gone viral.

When I saw the video title for GN and that it was 44 minutes long I knew this was going to be a shitstorm.

[wanderingfool2]

19 minutes ago, Ironman420 said:

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. 

The patent system has been broken for quite some time now.  There are usually ways around these types of design patents, and the process to get a patent can be long and arborous.  What can happen though is being first to market etc, to establish brand recognition and such.  Look at fidget spinners, while there are tons of clones the name fidget spinner is now synonymous with it (or like the word Kleenex).  It's almost the intangibles that money and even free press cannot buy.

 

23 minutes ago, Ironman420 said:

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.

There is a difference between being a stakeholder in a company and not disclosing and someone in the same space creating a video about another creator.

 

If you were to watch GN's video, it's clear from the video that he covers technology.  There is no need to state the blatantly obvious; but if you were to watch an LTT laptop video would you know that LTT has a vested stake in competing laptops?  No.  That's where the difference lies.

 

The example I give in terms of this, LTT created a video which effectively talks about soldered components and comes to the conclusion that being upgradable is better overall...given that Framework is the one that markets themselves on that kind of mantra, it should be noted that Linus has a stake in Framework.

 

27 minutes ago, Ironman420 said:

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.

When it's former high level positions, then yes it's okay to call into question their affiliations.  If they were some engineer who worked at Asus I'm sure it wouldn't be as big of a deal.  What is a big deal though is when you have someone whose literal title was Product Marketing for North America; that's when things start getting called into question (especially when they are taking sponsorships from them, and seemingly has had a few soft balls thrown at Asus)

[Vilacom]

Just now, QChoumont said:

How do you figure that?

We are talking about LTT and GamersNexus, two companies that in the past have done exposés on other companies in the tech field, this behavior is precedented. The comparison to the Washington Post and Times is not without merit as those two companies have set expectations of reporting in that fashion. Coke and Pepsi have set no such expectations and have no established history of integrity. 

Please elaborate on how the comparison to Coke and Pepsi is more fitting.

Because they are direct competitors, Objectively a company like Intel would be a fantastic group to review AMD processors.  Who could know more and give more detailed data on a processor than someone who literally has the hundreds of millions/billions in equipment to test these things down to the atom.  But you probably would be extremely skeptical of a video of Intel reviewing anything produced by their direct competitor right? Huge conflict of interest, significant benefits for intel with every person who takes them seriously, etc.  It's the same thing here, GN and LTT review tech and tech companies, they do not review tech reviewers.  That's a massive conflict of interest and any ambiguity, how objective factual information is presents, can have significant effects and intent beyond what a review of a GPU might be.  Something that steve calls out in several cases(Like Jake saying that its probably a pretty good cause cause its ASUS and ASUS is a sponsor for LTX) but doesn't acknowledge his own self interest in portraying things in a poor light, even(his words again) at a subconscious level.  It benefits GN a lot to continue to be considered the more factual data intensive channel and for LTT to continue to be considered the entertainment channel that you dont go to when you want "real data".  Somehow I doubt he's going to take that video down if everything gets better at LTT and the points he's making are no longer relevant.  So whenever someone see that video(and given the traction its getting my guess is the algorithm will continue pushing it for quite some time) you've created something to cause doubt with your direct competitor that will basically exist forever and be served to anyone who is looking to the space because of how the algorithm serves content.  

[joaopt]

2 minutes ago, LinusTechLies said:

Maybe it's because Linus knows that this forum receives the least amount of traffic.

 

Hence he made his only reply here.

 

Thats why he's radio silent on all his other platform's because damage control is easier on a forum thats only active when there's drama.

 

his strategy was clearly to ignore it until it went away. That and lie is way out of it apparently

[angelwolf71885]

36 minutes ago, JoshuaScholar said:

Saying nothing is the same as saying "we have no intention of improving" especially after Linus went on the WAN show and refused to apologize for making a deliberately wrong video on Billet.

Wouldn’t matter if LMG addressed this on WAN or not the messages will be curated and not actual sharp criticism will make it to air they don’t wanna make it a WAN topic because it will consume the whole show and the criticism will be sharp as a tack

[harls]

2 minutes ago, Cl0udK1ller said:

You are playing so much D for Linus here.  I don't think anyone can take anything you say in good faith.  

 

The fact it took a video from GN for Linus to actually reach out to Billet labs to compensate them is mind blowing to me.  It's honestly indefensible and anyone who tries to defend it is clearly bias and shouldn't partake in these conversations because clearly they care more about their weird parasocial relationship with a youtuber than ethics.

I am not playing D for anyone.  I have repeatedly said LMG clearly fucked up and need to make things right with Billet.  They also need to fix their reviews to lessen the errors.   That does not mean Linus saying "the fact that while we haven't sent payment yet, we have already agreed to compensate Billet Labs for the cost of their prototype"  can only mean that Linus agreed to a dollar amount with Billet Labs prior to the posting of GN video.  

 

[Legitsu]

A lot of people are missing this: sometimes how your report something matters more than to the why. that is part of journalistic integrity and that is a point I think Steve has missed it. Doesn't matter if you're right if you look like a douchebag while reporting on it

[WookieTiddy]

I was honestly surprised at Linus' response to this. While I understand not wanting it to turn into a "sniping contest" as Linus mentioned, I don't think there's any way around it now. A non-apology and triple-down and arguing semantics of "auctioning" not "Selling"...Not a good look.

The Billet labs thing sounds like a MAJOR miscommunication by the inter-company logistics department (i.e. the people who handle special hardware like the monoblock) and there should ABSOLUTELY be a public apology (in some format, not even a video necessarily) to them for selling/auctioning their unicorn prototype, and for LTT's cavalier attitude in not using it as it was designed to be used, even if Billet said a 4090 should work.

First time in LTT's history that I've felt at odds with Linus's opinions. Hope he can pull it back. If not, I may cancel my Floatplane sub.