Gamers Nexus alleges LMG has insufficient ethics and integrity

[djenson]

Very well written piece from GN. I hope the response coverers all bases of the issues raised, preferablely with its own video. I think that's going to be required as not many will see the part in a middle of a WAN show where its addressed. If the part about the waterblock is correct, its gonna be a really bad look for LTT, especially with him not even giving it $500 of time. 

[Zato80]

1 minute ago, Viesulis said:

The Billet Labs thing is heartbreaking. Imagine being the people making that. Linus says he doesnt want to spend 500 dollars worth someones time retesting it but hes absolutely fine with stealing and selling off something someone has worked on for hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours? Even more tragically there might not even be a contractual agreement and Billet Labs might not be able to afford a lawsuit. Im going to unsub and not watch a second of LMG content until this is resolved and i urge others to do the same. 

Absolutely feel disgusted by the Billet Labs story, Linus has some major apologies to make.

[coonwhiz]

1 minute ago, RasmusDC said:

This fast journalism is a big issue in our current marked, rather be fast and then say "sorry" than correct, it is also QUITE obvious with the foundation of guys like Louis Rossmann, where it is also REACTION, then ohhh somebody actually told me other facts, and i think i need to rethink my stance.

 

And by "saying" sorry it "just absolves" you from the damage you could have done, by just being FAST..

To me, it looks like Linus is adopting the Silicon Valley mindset of "Move fast and break things" (sometimes literally). Which is fine when he's remodeling his house, or doing silly projects. But when it's a GPU review that people will be relying on because he has millions of subscribers, its unacceptable. I understand that GPU manufacturers aren't making it easy by setting embargo dates that are the same date that reviewers get cards, but as a reviewer, you need to provide accurate information first and foremost.

[manikyath]

Just now, Zodiark1593 said:

Almost like everyone is human, and subject to emotions. 
 

I’ve yet to listen to the video, and will shortly. Though some initial thoughts first. 

 

In agreement with what another poster said above, a lot of videos LTT has produced is pretty similar to Top Gear, which isn’t a bad thing by itself, but is trying to pivot to a more objective direction, and sometimes comes across as trying to fit in between.

 

There have definitely been some objective quality issues I’ve noticed as well, ranging from visual, such as not keeping focus, to corrections in information after the fact. Visual annotations in particular are not great for those of us that primarily listen instead of watch. 
 

There isn’t a particular massive standout problem, but lots of little things that hint towards a loose QC process. I’m unsure of what sort of QA process currently occurs ( and as someone that works QC, I’m quite curious), so I won’t speculate further. 

i'll save you 20 minutes of your life: watch the video on 2x.

 

the underlying notion of what steve's angry about is fairly correct.. he just seems exceptionally vindictive about it almost to the point of feeling like he *wants* things to be worse than they are.

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

Having watched the entire video alot of the criticism is genuine however some of the others should have been asked privately before airing things publically.

 

Everyone has noticed the errors, even Linus, who mentioned he missed the errors caught by early releases in Vessell. He discussed community moderators and a bug bounty taken out of the LMG team bonus pot.   Linus is clearly ideating before implementing a concrete solution.

 

The Copper Water Cooler, accusing a company of criminal theft without validation of what happened can be result in legal action.  This is a private conversation, first, then go public.

 

Framework investment, brah, Linus has done nothing wrong, he has gone beyond legal discloure.   Find me a pro right to repair laptop with the latest hardware that supports linux and windows out the box.

 

Attacks on the community is bonkers.  That was completely unneccesary.

[Blademaster91]

6 minutes ago, manikyath said:

wasnt the very point of linus not being CEO that he would have more time to steer the creative process (i.e. the way videos are moade)

 

that's not being naive, that's completely misunderstanding how LMG works..

I was honestly expecting less of Linus in videos so other LMG talent can be in videos, especially laptop content as its bad optics with the Framework investment. I don't mind their investment, and I like Framework as a company however I'd rather see someone else review laptops that has no involvement with Framework.

[Ch1ya]

3 minutes ago, Viesulis said:

The Billet Labs thing is heartbreaking. Imagine being the people making that. Linus says he doesnt want to spend 500 dollars worth someones time retesting it but hes absolutely fine with stealing and selling off something someone has worked on for hundreds, maybe even thousands of hours? Even more tragically there might not even be a contractual agreement and Billet Labs might not be able to afford a lawsuit. Im going to unsub and not watch a second of LMG content until this is resolved and i urge others to do the same. 

Second.

[Ultraforce]

11 minutes ago, swimtome said:

• Also the labs tour - I still haven't gotten clear what exactly happened but it's obvious the host of the tour isn't used to speaking and IMHO did not even intend to speak for LTT - he sounded just genuinely excited to be a part of LTT and seemed to misspeak.  ^{(Taran's first decree, the usual corporate statement of these views are my own and aren't necessarily the opinion of LTT}).

Yeah, while I get that this was mentioned because it was the start of attempts at re-examining LMG it felt a bit off since this is an engineer doing a tour and talking about stuff related to their work. I think it's very possible that both LMG doing re-tests for everything and the data they have shown in graphs being copied from previous tests both being true. Tim might have seen the re-test of everything happen and somewhere along the line that data could never end up reaching the final video without the engineer being wrong.

[UnwindingThree8]

14 minutes ago, manikyath said:

the severity of the issues is the problem. he's making it seem like LMG is purposefully inaccurate for the sake of lining their own pockets. no one here is arguing that the issues dont exist, the point is that if the way GN is making them out to be is in any way accurate to the real situation.

That's what you made of it. To me it was more than anything negligence if not incompetence. 

[Skipple]

Just finished the video. Here are my takes:

1. I thought Steve was very fair when criticizing LTT's sloppiness / inaccuracies / mistakes in recent videos, but this doesn't come as a surprise. I think this is something we all have known for a while now. I do agree that LTT needs to do some long and hard introspection on this topic.
2. I'm somewhat shocked that Steve didn't go into detail about their own testing methodology in response to the tour video
3. I dislike the non so gentle insinuation that LTT staff is biased because their previous employment without any evidence of said bias.
4. I dislike the non so gentle insinuation that LTT is biased of business connections / partnerships / investment without any evidence of said bias
5. I very much dislike the out of context clips from WAN Show while completely failing to represent Linus' viewpoint. Steve did this exact same thing last time he did a critical video of LTT re: Trust Me Bro.. 
6. I dislike that Steve fails to mention HIS OWN conflict of interest when criticizing a competitor that is moving into GN's bread and butter. 
7. The Billet Labs situation is possibly the most concerning part for me. I disliked Linus' response to the (honestly god awful) video when it happened. If the rest of the story is true, I don't even know how LTT can rectify the situation for the company. I would recommend @LinusTech respond to this situation immediately, tactfully, and publicly.

[Zato80]

Just now, manikyath said:

i'll save you 20 minutes of your life: watch the video on 2x.

 

the underlying notion of what steve's angry about is fairly correct.. he just seems exceptionally vindictive about it almost to the point of feeling like he *wants* things to be worse than they are.

I didn’t get that from Steve at all, you could see the reluctance he had in making the video ……. let’s not forget who took the swing at GN.

[ZombieMan762]

The Billet Labs situation is unacceptable and needs to be addressed publicly. Trashing their product after knowingly using the wrong GPU then failing to return it and putting it up for auction at LTX is a super bad look for LTT. 

 

I also do largely agree with a lot of what Steve said. The number of corrections in videos the editors must make is absurd and shows that scripts are not getting fact checked. I know Linus addressed this recently. However, this has been going on for a long time and shows the culture at LTT that comes from the top is that quantity over quality is what Linus expects out of his employees and until that changes videos will continue to have numerous errors (sometimes they are caught in editing and sometimes not at all). Or there are issues like leaving the film on the mouse pads and then blaming the company for it after you told your viewers LTT does not recommend that product. 

 

For everyone saying that is just Steve being salty over LTT Labs I don't think that is correct. Steve and GN have a loyal following and people are not going to stop watching GN because Linus built a lab. When videos like CPU reviews get released after embargo I personally watch videos from multiple sources. You don't have to be on team GN or team LTT. I personally watch most videos from both channels. I have been following LTT since it was just Linus sitting at his kitchen table. Now they are worth over 100 million and have over 100 employees. Crazy to think about.

 

I don't have a problem with Linus investing in Framework or partnering with industry members in a way that financially benefits LTT so long as they disclose such in videos relating to products produced by those companies. 

[Quackers101]

sort of the same feeling I had with LTT too, over a couple of years. which made me enjoy shortcircuit more, but sometimes those are rushed too or becomes like older LTT videos.

[ARitz Cracker]

Just now, Middcore said:

The vibe I've always gotten is "Linus doesn't want to have to handle himself like he's running a multimillion dollar company so he's pretending somebody else is running it to make it easier to avoid responsibility when he shoots his mouth off." 

I... am actually not going to fault that in of itself. Optimizing for minimal liability with maximum power retention is what you should do in a leadership position. If you wanna stay in power that is. But at the same time, if you're going to advertise data-driven content and support for novel tech... you gotta make good on those promises. And... well... not fuck over people's livelihoods with misinformation and gross negligence in the process.

[Falenone_]

This is not a casual wan show response anymore, this warrants a big main channel release about every point Steve made. Been a long time I view every single video for pure entertainment and nothing else because of lack of accuracy and lol yolo vibes with everything. That waterblock thing if true. Absolutely unacceptable. Get that block back from whoever got it and return it with public apology and reshoot of the video while removing the original 

[DarkClaw]

Just came over to see what the response on the forum would be (purely out of curiosity), and am somewhat disappointed in the handling (I don't frequent the forum enough to know if this is the norm).

 

First: why is it that an editorialized version of the title of the video used as the "main discussion post", instead of the topic that was properly title-ized (and the properly title-ized post was closed because this one is first? This feels oddly similar of the complaint of the timeliness of the videos vs accuracy, funny enough). While we all laugh and point at Reddit for its various failings... if there's one thing that most news-oriented subreddits try to do correctly, it's forcing correct title-ing to prevent misrepresentation. While it may seem like this topic's title it has a similar meaning, I can tell you that no such exacting wording was used and is far more inflammatory. In fact, that egregious AF title is what led to me actually bothering to write this up.

 

Second, some people seem to think that the "pointing out of [insert person here] being a former big brand representative" or "working with [insert brand name]" is some sort of shade throwing? While that is an (unlikely, IMO) possibility, I think it's more illustrating that it's possible to die a death by a thousand ("kinda sorta maybe" suspicious) cuts. From the point of view of a LAYPERSON (this is important, not a regular watcher's point of view), you can start deconstructing all these small, potentially harmless or even good, "odd" decisions easily and create a "death by a thousand cuts" situation for LMG; ie if you start questioning this one big thing LMG did wrong, you could easily spiral down a rabbit hole questioning every little thing. You don't want to give ammunition to your shooter if they're trying to deconstruct you. You don't want to someone picking out, what they consider to be, one bad thread out of your shirt, to eventually unravel the whole shirt when there was nothing (or just a very small thing) wrong with the shirt.

 

Third, some people are thinking that "LMG is being purposefully inaccurate to line their own pockets". I'm looking at one of you in particular. Listen to me: If you post a video where you know something is incorrect, that is unfortunately the truth. The real benchmark is the degree. Small error that is fixed in text, or is used for entertainment purposes and explaining "we're definitely doing this wrong but this is for fun" like has been done many times before? No biggie (FOR ME, not everyone). Using a product the known wrong way, not reaching out, and then saying the product is bad? That's pretty egregious.

 

Fourth, calling out GN for being a competitor to LMG and therefore their message is somehow lessened (even going so far as to call it a conflict of interest). Let me explain with an example how that's just not right. Tradespeople (plumbers, electricians, etc) will gladly point out each other's bad work. Are they financially incentivized to do so? Yes. But if they're right, what the hell does that change? Nothing. If anything, in the case that either or both pointed some failing in the other, it doesn't mean to ignore both/either; it means you have stuff to fix, unfortunately.

 

I'm sure everyone on both sides, LMG and GN, and even commenters here, MEAN WELL ENOUGH. I'm sure many will take extreme positions, but I'm going to stick to Hanlon's Razor.

 

If there's any changes I'd like to see, personally, I think its that reviews might need to get spun off into their own LTT Labs channel, so that people can take more time. And the LTT Labs channel would be given free reign to take the amount of time necessary that *even LMG employees admit they'd like to take*, where everything is triple-checked. And if there's anything I hope for, it's that Linus actually watches the video instead of just reading the comments.

Edited August 14, 2023 by DarkClaw
Attempting to further clarify my own points and English. Also added a 4th point now.

[Ultraforce]

1 minute ago, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

Having watched the entire video alot of the criticism is genuine however some of the others should have been asked privately before airing things publically.

 

The Copper Water Cooler, accusing a company of criminal theft without validation of what happened can be result in legal action.  This is a private conversation, first, then go public.

Given that LTT hasn't yet released a video today it's very possible that over the weekend prior to releasing the video Steve spoke privately to Linus or other executives at LMG about the video.

Steve does literally have Linus's number and called Linus about the LTT hack so he very well could have asked them privately first. Also technically what we've been calling theft of the billet labs is probably not criminal theft there likely was no contract about what is to be done just "here's this cool thing and how we've tested it, do you want to showcase it?" and "hey can we have it back, you didn't test it with our supported set up and would like it back please"

[RasmusDC]

4 minutes ago, manikyath said:

i'll save you 20 minutes of your life: watch the video on 2x.

 

the underlying notion of what steve's angry about is fairly correct.. he just seems exceptionally vindictive about it almost to the point of feeling like he *wants* things to be worse than they are.

He has a LARGE media house that has stole his whole concept and copied what he has use years on building, they also do it "very loose" with no focus on actual quality, and they are the type of partners that remove trust in potential big youtube channels. so i get where he is coming for..

 

Especially also when they do stabs at him, all the time. i feel like this all started back when gamers nexus had a "talk" about proper warrenty when Linus mad the giant FUBAR on his backpack warranties, so now Linus is just using his platform to "highlight" Steve as a problematic part of Youtube. as per the clips of their "podcast".. still fun to see, how Linus often is held back by Luke, he has a problem.. and the problem is he is still not grown up enough to be big business, maybe this new CEO will help, but i think this will be shortlived, because of the arrogance of the owner, NO ceo with actual respect of himself will let a owner step all over him. IF he should have the ability to run this organization properly, i think the first thing he needs to do is to remove Linus from the content, and company, and build it stronger with new capabilities. because it is a GIANT risk to have a guy like him running around in the organization.

[YoungBlade]

5 minutes ago, manikyath said:

the severity of the issues is the problem. he's making it seem like LMG is purposefully inaccurate for the sake of lining their own pockets. no one here is arguing that the issues dont exist, the point is that if the way GN is making them out to be is in any way accurate to the real situation.

I disagree that GN is saying LMG is purposefully inaccurate. To me, the critique came across as that LMG is being reckless, not malicious.

 

I think the final point about sponsorships was a weak one - I think GN probably could have made this video without mentioning the praise given in the Asus 4070 Short Circuit video, and without mentioning the praise for the NH-D15 in the coolers video while pointing out the Noctua Edition Screwdriver. The coolers one felt like it was really reaching to me - lots of tech enthusiasts praise Noctua, even when they aren't sponsored by them. It's almost a meme at this point - deserved or not.

 

However, even that didn't feel like GN was accusing LMG of being purposefully inaccurate. The possibility of a conflict-of-interest was brought up, but there was no accusation of LMG intentionally changing their conclusions for the sake of money. It was noted a couple of times that GN believed this could be a "subconsious bias" - which means it cannot be purposeful, even if it is happening.

 

I only watched the video once, so maybe I missed something, but it didn't seem particularly unfair to me, especially given how big LMG is. I do have to wonder why they don't pay someone to fact check their reviews before they go live - things like the 4060 Ti having a x8 connection was public information months before it was released, so it can't even be the excuse of "TechPowerUp didn't have that info out yet, and we only had Nvidia's spec sheet to go off of, and it got lost in the mail" or whatever reason they want to give. And they had been forced to make that correction in the 4060 Ti review, only to make the exact same mistake again in the 4060 review, which does look really bad. How can they let that mistake go through twice like that when they have 120 people on the payroll?

[NorKris]

5 minutes ago, Skipple said:

 

I dislike that Steve fails to mention HIS OWN conflict of interest when criticizing a competitor that is moving into GN's bread and butter. 

is he (linus) tho? 

[crism]

it was a good vid from Steve. lots of valid points against Lynas and LTT. I LOL'd

[Cavalry Canuck]

43 minutes ago, Ultraforce said:

It's part of a longer term thing that Linus has done a few times of saying what I have interpreted as legal contracts and agreements don't really matter and what matters instead is the honour/keeping your word.

Which I don’t think Linus has done a great job of in the past. Some of it might be narcissism, but frankly LMG has become too big of a beast for him to maintain any sort of control over. Even if he wanted better production quality, he can’t make it happen because there are now 120+ cogs in his machine he’d need to verify with to do so.

 

Linus had been talking about a new CEO for awhile now. It’s been at least a year since I first heard it mentioned. Maybe he’s already aware of the problems Steve has outlined, figured a new CEO was the best way forward, and we just haven’t seen the results of it yet? Corporate culture doesn’t shift overnight, even with a new chief at the helm.
 

If this is the case, it just adds to my feelings that Steve is being opportunistic in his approach to LMG’s faults, rather than altruistic. Yea, a lot of shit has gone down in the past couple months. That waterblock is a big fuck-up, so much that I think Steve didn’t emphasis it enough. But it’s still a bit early to be pushing something like this if the intent wasn’t to do harm.

 

The other alternative, maybe LMG needs to be broken up and/or downsized? He’s spoken before how the primary motivator for all this growth was to produce better content. But it has it really gotten any better? Visual quality sure, but the actual content of it not so much. 
 

Of course, I’m a bit jaded. I miss what LTT used to be. I think they do too.

[Middcore]

4 minutes ago, RasmusDC said:

and the problem is he is still not grown up enough to be big business, maybe this new CEO will help

The "new CEO" thing is to enable Linus's immaturity, not restrain it. 

[MarkPol88]

Just now, manikyath said:

he just seems exceptionally vindictive about it almost to the point of feeling like he *wants* things to be worse than they are.

That is a sole reason I stopped watching GN - he always looks like he is trying to find something bad, and if he can't he almost looks disappointed.

I am not saying that it is what he actually does - I just got that vibe while watching him last two years.

That's why I count on you guys - I will not watch another video from GN.

Problem is - there are f***ups after f***ups recently at LMG - some probably can be because of organising LTX, some from still teething Lab, but there is a line.

And not only LMG have problems, Jay have a whole fiasco with review taken down, and then accepting nVidia deal for "sponsored pre-review".

What I am trying to say - it seems many youtubers are slowly realizing that they bit more than they can chew and golden time is not given forever.

Let's hope the ones you like will prevail and their quality will go up...

[Skipple]

6 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

It was noted a couple of times that GN believed this could be a "subconsious bias" - which means it cannot be purposeful, even if it is happening.

Accusing someone/a company of a "subconscious bias" should follow with evidence of said bias, which I failed to see in Steve's video. There is a potential for conflict of interest, sure. Accusations of bias, even subconscious, require evidence. 

 

Following Steve's logic, his entire video is riddled with subconscious bias, as LTT is a competitor it GN.