LTT's Youtube channel died when it turned into clickbait junk!

[merch22]

I don't even agree with the clickbait part, but is it a sin for a youtube channel to seek traffic?

As an example, GN recently used Linus' strange face, and the video that followed also had Linus' name in the title.

Is there a problem?

[Waifu4Life]

You'd better stay off YouTube then, over half the video thumbnails are clickbait

[Krar_Project-X]

I literally just made a account to say this I fully understand and know how annoying it is BUT THERE IS ALREADY A SOLUTION

https://dearrow.ajay.app/

[jnmaster]

On 8/19/2023 at 2:43 PM, DVDfever said:

I subscribed a while back, but then the titles turned into clickbait junk, not even mentioning the name of the product that they're allegedly reviewing, and becoming the equivalent of an internet post that states: "You won't believe what they said next!"

 

And a bit later, I noticed they actively addressed this, and actually included it again. But then a few months later... it was back to the old ways. They think they're too big to fail, and so they're back to crappy titles like "Why is EVERYONE buying this Mic??"

 

Which mic? Put it in the title. Don't just have a beard grinning at me.

 

Every company falls at some point, and the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Even before recent events which I won't mention here, I've far more enjoyed reviews and coverage from the likes of Gamers Nexus. They actually treat their viewers like adults.

 

 

What a horrible take.. Gamers Nexus is sooooooooo boring If you’re hating, why are you even on this forum?

[Owsleygarcia95]

7 hours ago, Waifu4Life said:

You'd better stay off YouTube then, over half the video thumbnails are clickbait

Right lol. Most of the most interesting channels have click bait thumbnails. It's basically a requirement to succeed.

[xybre]

It's really telling that most of the biggest defenders of LTT I've seen in this and other threads readily admit that LTT's accuracy is low and real world usefulness is limited. The only real argument I've seen is that it's okay because it's entertaining and disbelief at how anyone could expect otherwise.

 

Reminds me a bit of how when Vitamin Water was sued for misleading advertising and their lawyers argued that no reasonable person would think that Vitamin Water was healthy.

 

I hope that the people at LMG take such a defense as an indictment rather than a compliment.

 

(to address the actual topic, clickbait titles are annoying, and I have unsubbed from channels that do it egregiously, and I do wish more of them would explain what the video is actually about at least in the description, but LTT usually does so it isn't such a deal breaker for me, I understand that other people may feel differently)

[Cripes567]

32 minutes ago, xybre said:

It's really telling that most of the biggest defenders of LTT I've seen in this and other threads readily admit that LTT's accuracy is low and real world usefulness is limited. The only real argument I've seen is that it's okay because it's entertaining and disbelief at how anyone could expect otherwise.

 

Reminds me a bit of how when Vitamin Water was sued for misleading advertising and their lawyers argued that no reasonable person would think that Vitamin Water was healthy.

 

I hope that the people at LMG take such a defense as an indictment rather than a compliment.

 

(to address the actual topic, clickbait titles are annoying, and I have unsubbed from channels that do it egregiously, and I do wish more of them would explain what the video is actually about at least in the description, but LTT usually does so it isn't such a deal breaker for me, I understand that other people may feel differently)

Im not a defender of LTT. Im not even the biggest fan, however people are going overboard as if LTT as committed all 7 sins, and therefore is a plague on humanity. It's melodramatics for the sake of melodramatics.

 

Is it good someone pointed out a problem? Yes. Is it good if LTT addresses said problem and improves? Yes. If not, they will just slowly fade away. I don't even like GN so no bias there either; But the guy really hammed it when it came to that cooler. As if LTT was on the same level of evil as some of the worst company's on earth.

Was it shitty? Sure, you can make a case for that. Did it warrant pitchforks? Then I question your judgement. You got one very major issue in the span of 10 years. But the thing is, these are issues that can be fixed. You and others are acting like it's something beyond repair. Again, it's melodramtic.

 

Anyone who doesn't agree with your "lets burn this shit down" way of thinking is a bootlicker.

[Neroon]

On 8/19/2023 at 9:16 PM, Cosmic Emotion said:

I stopped watching after the Linux Challenge. A connoisseur could see Linus was insanely biased against Linux. A real shame.

Why? I've read this a lot, but most of the time I see people saying he should've used a different distro, using certain methods that weren't apparent etc. It's also not like he doesn't shit on Windows. 

 

 

Also this topic title is complete nonsense and it is CLICKBAIT. Seriously OP, you wrote a clickbait title, when you know the opposite is true. You may not like it, but it clearly works. So why write a clickbait title. Well?

[Needfuldoer]

51 minutes ago, Neroon said:

Why? I've read this a lot, but most of the time I see people saying he should've used a different distro, using certain methods that weren't apparent etc.

That's just bog-standard Linux defense. 

 

I mean I get it, I remember going through my "why isn't everyone using this free software" phase, when I was a nerdy teenager back in the early 2000s. Problem is, polishing software isn't anywhere near as easy or fun as bashing together new features, so unless a project is huge and ends up on Windows anyway, it's going to feel clunky or outdated to uninitiated users. 

[Drazil100]

The problem with the whole clickbait situation is this is a very clear case of "If you won't do it I'll find someone who will". YouTube is designed for one thing and one thing only. It's designed to milk us the viewers for as much money as they can get away with by shoving as many ads in our face as we will tolerate. We are the product. The algorithm is designed to find videos that most people click on and that most people continue to watch after clicking on it.

The reason everything on YouTube is clickbait is cause that's what people click on and LTT would be committing even bigger suicide to their business than any of the controversies this past week if they were to stop clickbaiting entirely. YouTube would just find someone else who is willing to clickbait to push to the top of the recommended.

 

If anyone reading this is legitimately bothered by clickbait, take a step back and understand that YouTube is milking you for money. If you value your time so much you aren't willing to spend it watching a sub-par video, spend that time doing something more productive and stop letting YouTube profit off of you. We, the viewers, are the reason why the algorithm promotes clickbait and the ONLY way to stop it is either to get the ENTIRE platform as a whole to agree to not clickbait all at the same time, or for us to stop clicking on videos that we aren't positive is going to be a banger.

[ColinJ451]

On 8/19/2023 at 8:16 PM, Cosmic Emotion said:

I stopped watching after the Linux Challenge. A connoisseur could see Linus was insanely biased against Linux. A real shame.

They got way further than any normal users would even allowing for the slightly weird hardware

[Rex Hite]

Inluencers like LTT and GN are really just in the advertising and PR business from the start. The shilling may be subtle or blatant. But it's always there. It has to be. It isn't just something that allows them to exist; it's why they exist.

 

But it's Advertising 101 that the product of an advertiser is the audience; it's not and has never been a video or a screwdriver or a mat or even less tangible things like the pretension of gravitas or editorial excellence.

 

The product is the audience. And LTT and GN have created a defective product. It shares the fatal flaws of its creator.

[Cosmic Emotion]

1 hour ago, Neroon said:

Why? I've read this a lot, but most of the time I see people saying he should've used a different distro, using certain methods that weren't apparent etc. It's also not like he doesn't shit on Windows.

 

Windows is getting the offense deservingly.

 

The PopOS thing was Linus's fault, the warning was pretty apparent, no sane person would actually go ahead with something like that. Beyond that, he clearly didn't care to even try. He should have lost the bet.

 

Anyway, most people don't know about Linux so it's normal to not understand what I'm saying. That was my choice, to stop watching, as many other Linux fans decided.

The current situation is just the final nail on the coffin for me, personally. The forum is pretty nice though, I won't lie.

[Alvin853]

On 8/19/2023 at 8:46 PM, Middcore said:

Clickbait is documented proven to work. 

Only if you look at the wrong indicators. I'm pretty sure clickbait gets them more views overall, but less interaction from their/their sponsors target audience. 

[digitalscream]

1 hour ago, Cosmic Emotion said:

 

Windows is getting the offense deservingly.

 

The PopOS thing was Linus's fault, the warning was pretty apparent, no sane person would actually go ahead with something like that. Beyond that, he clearly didn't care to even try. He should have lost the bet.

 

Anyway, most people don't know about Linux so it's normal to not understand what I'm saying. That was my choice, to stop watching, as many other Linux fans decided.

The current situation is just the final nail on the coffin for me, personally. The forum is pretty nice though, I won't lie.

What drove me nuts about that little episode is that he clearly didn't even read the error - if he had, it would've been obvious what it was telling him. He just copy-pasted it into Google and stopped when there wasn't a direct answer instead of trying to understand what it was telling him. That's...exactly what all of us experience on a daily basis with users, and we excoriate them for being dumb. Just another example of shortcuts negatively affecting the end result.

 

As for LTT being dead...no, not really. Even with everything that's going on, this isn't going to be an iiluminaughtii-style collapse (which, by the way, is probably the most spectacular self-inflicted demise I've ever seen) because if I've learned anything over nearly a couple of decades of watching YouTube, one thing is required for that to happen: wilful malice. That's just not present at LMG - they're doing their best, they just haven't been very good at it and most of the serious issues that have come up in the last week have been the result of an out-of-sight, out-of-mind approach to pretty much everything. That can be fixed with a genuine display of penitence and really putting in the hard yards to properly fix all of the problems. I see no indication that they won't do both of those things.

 

EDIT: Floatplane, on the other hand...that's another story. They've lost about $300k/year in subscribers, and if that doesn't come back...that's a couple of developers' salaries after overheads. I can imagine a WAN Show conversation where Linus talks about having to let a couple of devs go, and explaining that it's our fault for unsubscribing over the drama while Luke desperately tries to unplug his mic. While it'd be an entertaining few seconds on camera, that'd almost put them back to square one.

[Neroon]

2 hours ago, Cosmic Emotion said:

 

Windows is getting the offense deservingly.

 

The PopOS thing was Linus's fault, the warning was pretty apparent, no sane person would actually go ahead with something like that. Beyond that, he clearly didn't care to even try. He should have lost the bet.

 

Anyway, most people don't know about Linux so it's normal to not understand what I'm saying. That was my choice, to stop watching, as many other Linux fans decided.

The current situation is just the final nail on the coffin for me, personally. The forum is pretty nice though, I won't lie.

But it wasn't just Linus, it was also Luke, who also struggled a lot.

 

A lot is about intended use case. Their point of view was how Linux was for basically newbies, who do have the know how to tinker with their OS, but still have basically 0 knowledge of the OS.

 

Now you say Pop OS was his fault, but I just searched for "easy to use Linux distros" and the first his gave me Pop OS in it's top 10 list. And they aren't the only one, multiple sites on the first page, has Pop OS (and some specifically mention how good it is for gamers, which was an important part) at the top. And this is 1 of the issues. Windows is Windows. You grab the latest version and you should be fine. MacOS the same thing. But not with Linux.

In the end the goal was to see how it would be to go from Windows to Linux.

 

I get it, Linux users are defensive about their platform. They also tend to be powerusers, and like to tinker with their OS. But for casual and even more advanced users, the OS requires a ton of work, to get where they are in Windows, and even then things will not always work as they would on Windows. That's definitely not always the fault of Linux, but also due to support. But as a consumer, you don't want to think too long as to whether something will work or not.

[gottahavit]

On 8/19/2023 at 3:16 PM, Cosmic Emotion said:

I stopped watching after the Linux Challenge. A connoisseur could see Linus was insanely biased against Linux. A real shame.

Everyone has Bias's, a good product get's past them.  Luke it all about Linux and he agreed it was a rough ride.  If you aren't on Steam Deck(or even if you are) Linux is not mainstream for gamers(and probably never will be)

[GOTSpectrum]

1 hour ago, Neroon said:

But it wasn't just Linus, it was also Luke, who also struggled a lot.

 

A lot is about intended use case. Their point of view was how Linux was for basically newbies, who do have the know how to tinker with their OS, but still have basically 0 knowledge of the OS.

 

Now you say Pop OS was his fault, but I just searched for "easy to use Linux distros" and the first his gave me Pop OS in it's top 10 list. And they aren't the only one, multiple sites on the first page, has Pop OS (and some specifically mention how good it is for gamers, which was an important part) at the top. And this is 1 of the issues. Windows is Windows. You grab the latest version and you should be fine. MacOS the same thing. But not with Linux.

In the end the goal was to see how it would be to go from Windows to Linux.

 

I get it, Linux users are defensive about their platform. They also tend to be powerusers, and like to tinker with their OS. But for casual and even more advanced users, the OS requires a ton of work, to get where they are in Windows, and even then things will not always work as they would on Windows. That's definitely not always the fault of Linux, but also due to support. But as a consumer, you don't want to think too long as to whether something will work or not.

I run a mix of windows a linux, to be precise, 1 win10, 1 win11 and 2 Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.

 

Linux is fun but no way in hell would I run it on my main machines

[Krar_Project-X]

I want to go ahead and ask is dearrow a good solution I want everyone's thoughts

[Neroon]

1 hour ago, GOTSpectrum said:

I run a mix of windows a linux, to be precise, 1 win10, 1 win11 and 2 Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.

 

Linux is fun but no way in hell would I run it on my main machines

So much comes down to what you use it for, Linux can be amazing for certain use cases, but a lot is about tinkering.

 

I would compare it to something like 3D Printing. I know people who love tinkering with their printer, who still love like a 'stock' Ender 3, that they upgrade all the way. Whereas others just want something simple and easy, and just want to print.

 

The same can be seen with cars and many other things. 

Personally, I generally hate tinkering with stuff like that, and the only exception is when I don't have to rely on it.

[Cosmic Emotion]

2 hours ago, Neroon said:

But it wasn't just Linus, it was also Luke, who also struggled a lot.

 

A lot is about intended use case. Their point of view was how Linux was for basically newbies, who do have the know how to tinker with their OS, but still have basically 0 knowledge of the OS.

 

Now you say Pop OS was his fault, but I just searched for "easy to use Linux distros" and the first his gave me Pop OS in it's top 10 list. And they aren't the only one, multiple sites on the first page, has Pop OS (and some specifically mention how good it is for gamers, which was an important part) at the top. And this is 1 of the issues. Windows is Windows. You grab the latest version and you should be fine. MacOS the same thing. But not with Linux.

In the end the goal was to see how it would be to go from Windows to Linux.

 

I get it, Linux users are defensive about their platform. They also tend to be powerusers, and like to tinker with their OS. But for casual and even more advanced users, the OS requires a ton of work, to get where they are in Windows, and even then things will not always work as they would on Windows. That's definitely not always the fault of Linux, but also due to support. But as a consumer, you don't want to think too long as to whether something will work or not.

 

This is the only unbiased answer I see here so that's the one I'm responding to. Users are called normies and not "absolute nutjobs" for a reason, that's all I will say about the other replies.

 

Now, I started using Linux in 2018 out of luck. Seriously, I had a Networks class in my Master's and had to use Linux for school. So i decided to just, you know, mindlessly check the state of Linux gaming in 2018. It was October so Proton had just come out a couple of months ago. I decided to try it and was astounded by the results. Everyone was telling me how Linux sucks and I was ready to agree with them up to that point.

 

So I'm not a Linux user of 10,000 years. I value ease of use. A LOT. That being said I still hate Ubuntu for multiple reasons, the main one being how cumbersome it is to do things on it. I consider it some S&M thing older Linux users like to force upon themselves, just because that's how they learned to use Linux.

 

In any case, the distro of choice for the challenge didn't really matter. Both PopOS and Mint are fine distros and also were at the time the challenge took place. Linus just wasn't in the correct mindset to try it. People don't just casually switch to Linux. The have a reason to do so. Linus didn't and didn't even care to put himself in the shoes of a person who would actually like to switch.

 

Also, I would like to add here that every outsider or newbie might see the "Linux Division" as a problem. It's a blessing but I won't get into that, it's not the point of this post.

 

Linux is easier than Windows, try Garuda for example and see how fast you can set it up for gaming. The answer is that in 10 minutes or less (including the install obviously) you will be done with all necessary drivers and apps that you might need also installed. PikaOS (which has an Ubuntu base) is in the same vein. When SteamOS comes out this fact will be proven profoundly.

 

Websites recommending distros like vanilla Ubuntu or Manjaro clearly have no idea about the Linux ecosystem or what a normie truly cares about. Which is ease of use (including compatibility) and stability (meaning they will never have to care about their system breaking after an update and they wouldn't be able to log in or their apps stop working).

 

 

 

However, that's exactly what LInus's and Luke's job was and still is. Inform the people. Do the research. Find the best one. What should have happened is that Linus and Luke should have tried 10 distros each and then recommend the one they liked best after living for some time in it. The Challenge was a fluke just by this very basic fact. They never took Linux seriously, they were just having fun.  That was my main issue with it.

 

TLDR:

Linus never took the Linux challenge seriously and was just having fun and we, as Linux users, didn't like this kind of coverage.

[Acoreus]

18 minutes ago, Cosmic Emotion said:

 

This is the only unbiased answer I see here so that's the one I'm responding to. Users are called normies and not "absolute nutjobs" for a reason, that's all I will say about the other replies.

 

Now, I started using Linux in 2018 out of luck. Seriously, I had a Networks class in my Master's and had to use Linux for school. So i decided to just, you know, mindlessly check the state of Linux gaming in 2018. It was October so Proton had just come out a couple of months ago. I decided to try it and was astounded by the results. Everyone was telling me how Linux sucks and I was ready to agree with them up to that point.

 

So I'm not a Linux user of 10,000 years. I value ease of use. A LOT. That being said I still hate Ubuntu for multiple reasons, the main one being how cumbersome it is to do things on it. I consider it some S&M thing older Linux users like to force upon themselves, just because that's how they learned to use Linux.

 

In any case, the distro of choice for the challenge didn't really matter. Both PopOS and Mint are fine distros and also were at the time the challenge took place. Linus just wasn't in the correct mindset to try it. People don't just casually switch to Linux. The have a reason to do so. Linus didn't and didn't even care to put himself in the shoes of a person who would actually like to switch.

 

Also, I would like to add here that every outsider or newbie might see the "Linux Division" as a problem. It's a blessing but I won't get into that, it's not the point of this post.

 

Linux is easier than Windows, try Garuda for example and see how fast you can set it up for gaming. The answer is that in 10 minutes or less (including the install obviously) you will be done with all necessary drivers and apps that you might need also installed. PikaOS (which has an Ubuntu base) is in the same vein. When SteamOS comes out this fact will be proven profoundly.

 

Websites recommending distros like vanilla Ubuntu or Manjaro clearly have no idea about the Linux ecosystem or what a normie truly cares about. Which is ease of use (including compatibility) and stability (meaning they will never have to care about their system breaking after an update and they wouldn't be able to log in or their apps stop working).

 

 

 

However, that's exactly what LInus's and Luke's job was and still is. Inform the people. Do the research. Find the best one. What should have happened is that Linus and Luke should have tried 10 distros each and then recommend the one they liked best after living for some time in it. The Challenge was a fluke just by this very basic fact. They never took Linux seriously, they were just having fun.  That was my main issue with it.

 

TLDR:

Linus never took the Linux challenge seriously and was just having fun and we, as Linux users, didn't like this kind of coverage.

I did the Linux challenge along with them. I ran into issues neither of them did. I had to reevaluate all my peripherals because they would start cutting out (Cal-digital Thunderbolt dock, Logitech keyboard/mouse/microphone/webcam). I ran into issues with games I wanted to play not working (Apex Legends namely, but there were actually a few). I had instability issues that plagued the machine till I removed it.  Went back to Windows and haven't looked back. They took is as seriously as they could, but Linux is what Linux is. 

 

At work, we use Linux on our machines and universally it's hated by the engineers here.

 

What it boils down to is a use case as they stated in the video. I'm happy for you that you have the very niche use case that Linux is working for but the video conclusion still stands that it's use case specific. 

 

Also, complaining about click-bait again? It's just the title. It didn't change the content. They do it because it works. If they stop doing clickbait there will be like 30 more neckbeards who watch again and they lose a substantial chunk of their viewers. So long live the clickbait, it gives them the funding to keep making content.

[dragonuck76]

why post this, as bad as the others.... trolls maybe

[digitalscream]

40 minutes ago, Cosmic Emotion said:

In any case, the distro of choice for the challenge didn't really matter. Both PopOS and Mint are fine distros and also were at the time the challenge took place. Linus just wasn't in the correct mindset to try it. People don't just casually switch to Linux. The have a reason to do so. Linus didn't and didn't even care to put himself in the shoes of a person who would actually like to switch.

This is true. I switched in 2004-2005 (I think), because I happened to need to activate my XP machine on a weekend when the entire Microsoft activation service was down - the only way I could actually work was to head into town, buy a magazine with a SuSE Linux DVD on the front, and get going. Yes, I'm that old, and it's back in the days when you couldn't actually use your machine if the grace period ran out. It ruined my whole weekend for the sake of a piece of work that should've taken me an hour, max. I decided I was never, ever going to be in that position again.

 

40 minutes ago, Cosmic Emotion said:

So I'm not a Linux user of 10,000 years. I value ease of use. A LOT. That being said I still hate Ubuntu for multiple reasons, the main one being how cumbersome it is to do things on it. I consider it some S&M thing older Linux users like to force upon themselves, just because that's how they learned to use Linux.

For what it's worth, I use Ubuntu purely because it's one of the few distros that's good enough for both servers and desktops - and I find it handy to be using the same OS locally and on our test/production services, it just saves on a bit of mental gymnastics. Mine's fairly heavily customised (you wouldn't recognise it as any particular flavour of Ubuntu or its derivatives), but it's still got the same basic package set as our production systems.

 

But...being a Linux user wasn't why I was pretty scornful when Linus and Luke did the challenge; I really don't care if other people use it or not, it's just the thing that works best for me with a minimum of friction. As I said above, the reason I was scornful was Linus doing exactly the same thing we all cuss out idiot users for doing - just not even trying to read the error message. It was so clearly a careless "Fk it, I can't be bothered to do this properly" move, which is inherent in the whole approach that's got them in hot water in the first place with everything that's happened in the last week or so.

[Acoreus]

18 minutes ago, digitalscream said:

But...being a Linux user wasn't why I was pretty scornful when Linus and Luke did the challenge; I really don't care if other people use it or not, it's just the thing that works best for me with a minimum of friction. As I said above, the reason I was scornful was Linus doing exactly the same thing we all cuss out idiot users for doing - just not even trying to read the error message. It was so clearly a careless "Fk it, I can't be bothered to do this properly" move, which is inherent in the whole approach that's got them in hot water in the first place with everything that's happened in the last week or so.

Fatigue is real. There gets a point in troubleshooting something that should be simple that you get irritated and start making mistakes. He said at the beginning his goal was the common user experience. He did a pretty damn valiant job wading through mundane frustrations to try and get something work that he was used to just always having work.

 

It's a spectrum with Linux and other random OS's on the "Hard" side, Windows being a large section of the middle because it can be both, and Apple on the "easy" side. I wish there was a Linux distro that worked with the hardware I ran, and maybe it will after I do my upgrade.  I really only use my computer for gaming though and Linux has been difficult to make work for that.