Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[Cavalry Canuck]

7 minutes ago, post_screen said:

Linus talking about pitch-forks being out so fast seems like he is reading into this a bit wrong. I personally don't want to shout for the sake of pointing the finger at Linus and calling for the cancelation of LMG. I admire Linus and Yvone and everyone else in that company and really want them to succeed. And that is exactly why I jumped on the forum the moment I saw GN's video. I want to point out the things that I think they could and should do better. I know that my opinion doesn't mean anything, but the opinion of the community does, and it HAS to be heard

I mean, did you read the one comment made about his kids? Some people are a little off their rocker over this.

I'd also agree that calling the situation over the block "theft" is an overstatement. It's a serious fuck up that sounds like it will have a significant dollar value attached to it. But at least now we know how it is being handled. It doesn't answer the IP concerns, but it's good to know it's getting resolved (even if the solution isn't ideal).

[GotWeez]

2 minutes ago, DeerDK said:

Irrelevant in terms of journalistic integrety. You reach out for a comment before you run a piece like this. Otherwise its an attack more than reporting. Reporting is about bringing the fullest picture 

Reach out... you mean like Billet Labs did to recover their prototype before it was auctioned of fOr cHaRiTy?

[ToboRobot]

3 minutes ago, IndustrialBananaBread said:

Made an account to make this post. Honestly, the entire defense about inaccuracies seems to boil down to "we're not perfect", which frankly isn't good enough for a company that was offered to be bought out for a hundred million dollars.

Show me a perfect company!  Even companies worth billions make mistakes.

It's how you deal with them that matters.

[is0p0d]

I really hope this isn't one of those situations where a whole bunch of people will try and jump ship and join the bandwagon to try and save face just because the company hit its first big controversy. Hope the fellas and fellettes at LMG will stick through it and try to remedy this from the inside.

[BaidDSB]

24 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

basic due diligence

you fucking cheap ass bastard. "basic due diligence" doesnt mean  THEFT, no matter if its for charity.

 

 

[daydreamfaze]

28 minutes ago, SAUVE76 said:

But why, is it full more of attacks ...as I said they are aware of the issues and will fix...  what else is there bar attacks

Tons of correct information outlining why LMG has been going downhill for a while now. They point out everything wrong with why you think you like Lienus. There was no "attacks" they were well composed criticisms of outright Bad behavior exhibited by LMG for a good long while now.  "they are aware of issues and will fix" Does not include things like removing the comment form Billet Labs on the video in question, that pointed out the fact that lienus did the test incredibly wrong by using a 4090 for the review, when told explicitly not to do so. Bad mouthed the company and the product, even though he used it wrong. Proceeded to pin a bogus comment about the test, AGAIN using a 4090...... THEN SOLD THE PROTOTYPE WITHOUT PERMISSION. 

These are not attacks, these are Facts... This is Why you should watch the video before speaking on what you clearly do not understand. Or just dont speak on it.  

[Dom1252]

I don't understand why would anyone ever trust LTT data 

it's obvious that LTT is either full of people who should never touch computers, or they just don't care (and in both cases, they shouldn't put out any reviews) 

 

 

the fiasco with prototype shows that LTT is just an evil company and should be sued to oblivion 

 

stick with funny videos, they don't harm anyone and they're fun

[Raiden85]

4 hours ago, Sarra said:

You're putting out content that some people are going to use for large purchases. If your reviews are inaccurate, then they have much less value.

 

You need to be thorough and accurate, especially in benchmarks.

 

When errors are found, there needs to be an injection of voiceover during post.

 

All that energy, and money, you're pumping into the labs project is going to be for naught if your accuracy isn't there.

 

Start slowing down on the content, and do more checking. Steve raised a lot of valid points, I think you should look internally at processes to improve everything.

 

This is what worries me about the lab when there is so many mistakes on the regular review and bench videos. What's the point of having a massive data base of tests with lots of different hardware if at the back of my mind I'm thinking is this truly accurate, how reliable is the data when you can't trust other reviews that have been done.

 

I honestly love the lab, but if you want to reassure people that your data is 100% accurate then significantly better fact checking needs to be done on the main videos. If that means slowing down even slightly then so be it, its pointless even doing benchmark videos in the first place if they are wrong as its a complete waste of LTTs time and money and screws the non technical people who will not recognise the mistakes. 

[Sarra]

24 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

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.

You did multiple companies dirty.

 

What happens when other companies decide to use alternative reviewers in the future, and you are unable to get samples, prototypes, and various things to test?

 

You said you wanted Labs to eventually offer testing, using your RF chamber. Right now, you need to seriously consider if this is going to actually be possible, because doing companies dirty is going to get your lab on the blacklist.

[bright_things]

1 minute ago, insanityclown said:

Steve doesn’t owe you anything. Implying that this is unfair or not journalistically proper because he didn’t contact you before publishing an expose is absurd. You own a large company, and people rely on the information you provide. Sometimes that means you will get taken to task publicly for a screw up. Stop whining, show some integrity and just admit you f-ed up and need to do better. End of story.

The issue isn't that Linus didn't get a heads up, the issue is that his side of the story was not included, which from his response it seems like was very important in this case. In fair journalism I would prefer to see both sides in an expose, otherwise its just an opinion piece. I hope and think that Linus will face it head on, but now he has to waste time clarifying inaccuracies in GNs video before he can talk solutions, etc.

[daydreamfaze]

1 minute ago, ToboRobot said:

Show me a perfect company!  Even companies worth billions make mistakes.

It's how you deal with them that matters.

Making a mistake and owning it is one thing, Lienus not only doubled down on his poor testing methodology, but Tripled down on it by pinning a comment about redoing the test... again with a 4090... What is that saying,... "RTFM" yeah maybe he should do that next time... 

[A_Mediocre_Kangaroo_Farmer]

14 minutes ago, A_Mediocre_Kangaroo_Farmer said:

The long time para-social relationship makes me consider Linus to be a hardworking and heartfelt guy, and honest. That's why I know he's very emotional and might not do or say the right thing at all times. Not gonna pretend to know how he will respond to this though.

(shameless self quote, please don't kill) Didn't have to wait for long for the response. The watercooler seems to be what upset people the most and it's unfortunate but no where near malicious as many seem to claim. (People who know Linus Sebastian's character would have been more inclined to believe there was another side to this)

8 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

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.

 

As with all things there is a very small portion of the community that is "hardcore" and the rest are always less knowledgeable and involved. As Linus has stated before, the masses don't listen to everything, remember what he has said before or bother with the full context. To me this means it's important to address things that can affect LTT/LMG.

 

As for the lab, the willingness to "hit the ground running" as it were might be a decision based on "float or sink" for all I know. I don't like to see unpolished processes even though I fully expect the lab will become a global influence on product quality and product claims. With the stated goal of the lab project it will be under constant scrutiny and will be opposed at every turn. This is why it needs to be (as) perfect (as it can be).

 

 

[post_screen]

Just now, Ex14 said:

Idk about you but there’s definitely a fair amount of pitch forks without even waiting for any real explanation. I mentioned it o. Reddit but we really shouldn’t be blindly following any single person nor entity.

Agree 100% and I'm never for following someone blindly. That creates a cult-like community which never ends up being beneficial for anyone and more often then not that person ends up being horrible. Pitch forks should be out and Linus should address it in a proper way. Those pitch forks are in the hands of the people that made his company what it is today. His rule is to never disrespect his audience and not addressing this situation in a proper way should be a reason for some kind of retaliation.   

[Jazmodo]

On 8/14/2023 at 10:01 PM, Benji_w said:

I love how they stated they watched 5 mins only to then go on prove all of Steve's points perfectly....

 

I'm equally amused that so many here find a differing opinion equal to a lack of understanding - "you can't have watched the whole thing" or "go watch more than 5mins".
 

In summary of the GN Video:

• LMG is rushing too much, creating mistakes - Weak opinion. ActuallyHardcoreOverclocking is far more detailed than either GN or LTT. Does that make AHO "better"? Debatable.
• LMG employees agree - Sure... snippets to try and prove a point. How many LMG employees would go work for Steve/GN? Employees may not think it's perfect, but clearly agree with the ethos, else wouldn't still be working for the company year after year
• This isn't Drama - No Steve, it really is. And he loves the drama, which is why he goes in for it again & again
• Bad data - Sure, and as previously stated not a problem in itself. Corrections are made, and just because they don't meet Steve's 'self-imposed' standards, doesn't mean they're not acceptable corrections. Poor editorial QC is all this part of the GN proves, unworthy of the 45min rant
• CPU Coolers - GN cherry-picking data to shout about how they do superior quality testing, and have superior methodology
• PSU Error - a literal typo? Weak argument there from GN
• Asterisk Errors - This is a video, if you can't read the text, don't believe everything you hear. You don't have to 'cut it' or 'correct it in video'. That's what Steve would do, that's not what EVERYONE has to do. Supremely arrogant attitude from Steve.
• Ethical Concerns, Irresponsible actions - All about Framework & Noctua. This is a complete non-issue. The framework investment is mentioned repeatedly, and Noctua were an LMG favourite well before the screwdriver, so why the big deal? Not everyone has to follow Steve's 'Ethical Guidelines'. 
• Ethical Concerns, Billet Labs - Reeks of a story told from a 1-sided point of view, with cherry-picked comments. Was the review sloppy? Yes. Did it harm the business of Billet Labs? Definitely not. Being exposed to tens of millions of people is no bad thing, and anyone taking a YT video as gospel is frankly deluded.
• Ethical Concerns, Pwnage Mouse - The most valid argument of the video, but hardly work a 3/4 hour rant. Again, I doubt Pwnage suffered at all from this huge exposure.
• Unacceptable & disturbing community - Steve knows he's going to get heat from this latest cry for attention, so tries to get ahead of any criticism. The only disturbing aspect to the GN video, is Steve's worrying lack of editorial direction, if he thinks this kind of content is going to do him any favours in the long run.
• Unfair to everyone - Nope. LMG has done wonders for the tech industry, and to suggest otherwise is folly. GN thinks it's an editorial, scientific review journal. LMG IS an entertainment outfit. At least LMG knows what it is. 

 

[Alvin853]

Well LMG has really been going downhill lately, I hope they see this as a wakeup call to reconsider some of their strategies. I'm not a fan of drama, but I have noticed a lot of issues with LMG videos lately and was hoping sooner or later this topic gets brought up so LMG can do the right thing.

 

Just look at this segment: 

Mr Framework Investor and supposed Right to Repair advocate Linus thinks it's "pretty cool" that the mainboard and case are non-standard so once you want to replace either one of them, the other one is unusable and becomes e-waste. 

Stuff like this happens way too often, and if LMG doesn't want to become a joke and untrustworthy they need to work on it.

[Deeppurp]

My biggest gripe: Wheres the LTT video I normally watch at lunch!

 

[Lyre]

1 minute ago, Raiden85 said:

 

This is what worries me about the lab when there is so many mistakes on the regular review and bench videos. What's the point of having a massive data base of tests with lots of different hardware if at the back of my mind I'm thinking is this truly accurate, how reliable is the data when you can't trust other reviews that have been done.

 

I honestly love the lab, but if you want to reassure people that your data is 100% accurate then significantly better fact checking needs to be done on the main videos. If that means slowing down even slightly then so be it, its pointless even doing benchmark videos in the first place if they are wrong as its a complete waste of your time and money and screws the non technical people who will recognise the mistakes. 

If the data isn't ready (which clearly it's not seeing how many things are in development) why post it?

[LinusAuctionTips]

2 minutes ago, bright_things said:

The issue isn't that Linus didn't get a heads up, the issue is that his side of the story was not included, which from his response it seems like was very important in this case. In fair journalism I would prefer to see both sides in an expose, otherwise its just an opinion piece. I hope and think that Linus will face it head on, but now he has to waste time clarifying inaccuracies in GNs video before he can talk solutions, etc.

Show me where GN was inaccurate. Linus was using weasel words to try to get around the fact that even if it was a charity auction, it wasn’t his to auction. 

Edited August 14, 2023 by insanityclown

[aminit]

Didn't watch the video but did he at any point say that they reached to LMG for comment regarding the "unethical concerns" (which should be the bar minimum for any journalistic work, let alone toward a colleague in the space).
I stopped watching his videos when he covered the calyos SG10 (and heaped praise for it) while choosing to ignore the strong controversies around the treatment of their kickstarter supporters, and I also got fed up with his "better than thou" altitude.

[wanderingfool2]

30 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

Is it because we are striving for transparency/improvement? Yeah...

Now lets see, in your Toyota one you seemed quite clear that you weren't going to bother disclosing. [Including the fact that it allowed you to film the Mirai video in California, and they covered at least part of the cost...how much we don't know because you don't disclose]

You own stake in Framework and didn't disclose it in multiple videos; including one involving soldered on components (where there were clearly mentioning framework in the comments).

You talk about Infinite Cables in a video where you claim the cable was under $1000 when in reality even it's over $5000.

 

Your whole transparency and improvement has constantly been dropping.

[IndustrialBananaBread]

4 minutes ago, ToboRobot said:

Show me a perfect company!  Even companies worth billions make mistakes.

It's how you deal with them that matters.

Good point. I do hope he does end up addressing it on WAN, as I feel doing it live and face to face would be more authentic then a single text post.

[Wolfy97]

I am a watcher of ltt videos for a long time now. In my opinion for the last 6ish months the quality of the videos degraded, and the mistakes lately are unacceptable, at least in my humble opinion. I wanted to recommend the mouse from the short circuit video to a friend but after seeing it had "problems" I decided not to. My bad for not watching multiple outlets but whatever. 

 

What I find fascinating is the whole Billet Labs situation. Many people already said it. It is unacceptable. What I find to be even more malice/incompetence at the highest level since I don't know how else to describe it.... In a recent wanshow I think it was 2 weeks ago(not sure please feel free to correct me) Linus said that he was not pleased to see a prototype backpack at the Expo and that the employees should not give those away. In the same spirit how can you auction off a prototype of a small company with the founders working thier entire lives to bring to life and wanted it back? after bashing them 2 times and not even testing it correctly. This is a situation that made me incredibly mad since Linus/LTT don't seem to care how much harm they can do to a startup that makes a cool innovative product, yea it's expensive, but what if in 3 years is less than half the price? I feel like I start to ramble so I will say just one more thing. 

 

LTT should not put down a company just because they don't like the product.

 

I really hope this is a wake up call since the objective that LTT has is a good one and I hope they don't forget it as google did with "do no evil"(or smth similar) 

[Ex14]

Just now, post_screen said:

Agree 100% and I'm never for following someone blindly. That creates a cult-like community which never ends up being beneficial for anyone and more often then not that person ends up being horrible. Pitch forks should be out and Linus should address it in a proper way. Those pitch forks are in the hands of the people that made his company what it is today. His rule is to never disrespect his audience and not addressing this situation in a proper way should be a reason for some kind of retaliation.   

I disagree. In this case I really don’t think it warrants this level of pitch forkery.

[BeefSupreme]

21 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

Today sucks.

I'm sorry that it feels like GN just dropped the whole world on your head. I'm sure most of us fans understand your commitment to integrity and will still love you despite this. I really do think your heart is in the right place.

 

While I understand preferring Steve to handle this privately, I can understand why he went public. Even in this response, you don't address his chief complaint: pushing out videos too fast to reasonably expect your employees to get everything right. Even your employees seem to be begging for more breathing room to do their jobs. I understand corrections happen, but yeah, you would have a lot less corrections if you spent the extra time to make sure the testing was ironclad. I would really love to hear you address this.

 

I don't think Steve did any of this in bad faith (or at least I hope not), but he felt as if the "corrections" are happening more and more frequently and to larger degrees and he's trying to push LTT/LMG to be better.

[Karl Mern]

3 hours ago, hassam222 said:

The part where it is alleged LTT auctioned off a prototype water block they promised to return is troubling. That requires an official response.

This makes LTT literally a thief or a criminal. Despite of this, it's so appalling that there are people in this forum defending linus and ltt. No wonder steve showed how linus's community jumped to his defense against Hardware Unboxed. At this point, you can just sit back and laugh at the absurdity of this company and its community. I hope Billet Labs sues ltt to the moon.