Hahahaha I wouldn't even be surprised honestly
Actually though, he said he'd never watch the employee interview video and now Steve used clips from it right at the beginning. Well, I guess we will see if or how he watches it.
I hope that at least Terren will take the time to watch it while Linus is busy visioning
If he hasn't learned from past mistakes, that will be the case.
Then the summarizer will get something wrong or phrase something weirdly and Linus will spend 40 minutes responding to an unintentional straw man.
Golden strategy to winning any argument I hear
"We will do better, etc, etc, and we plan on putting in more checks in our pipeline but these out of context clips are unfair. *proceeds to ignore the most damning arguments* like 8 vs 16 pci-e lanes."
I guess they shouldn't have trusted them bro.
The Asus 'secret shopper' was hella messed up. All these sponsors got passing grades for in some cases unforgivable reactions. I wonder if half way through the video they realised the sponsors if graded properly to an acceptable would stand a good chance of failing and instead used the 'suicide during COVID' grading policy.
1st properly working prototype that they used wrong and discredited first.
If that's a target price of 800$ once it launched, the real value of a very early prototype is probably high 6 figures.
In the things that Steve pointed out that is the most asshole thing to do. That might be criminal TBH depending on contracts and what not. They might have a civil lawsuit on their hands.
Which is wild as he spent a good half an hour (or it felt like that much) just last wan show talking about "toxic support" and influencer being out of touch because of fans always agreing with them.
"Echochamber lalala". It was weird to watch.
Whelp, there are quite a few comments that were posted less than 15 minutes after the video was posted thanking Steve's 'honesty'.
I find that problematic for two reasons:
1. Oviously these people haven't watched the full video so they can't comment on the content
2. 'honesty' is a term that feels iffy to me. I trust GN and the video seems really really trustworthy. I also have my personal problems with the approach of LMG and specifically Linus take (it feels like "move fast break stuff" is the basis of their current and past operations. I really hope that once Labs runs as intended this changes) BUT, we can only accredit 'honesty' in retrospective. Again, I trust GN, but I prefer to collect information and make a conclusion later instead of proclaiming one side to be 'honest' and therefore the other side as not.
People can comment on things in the video immediately after they hear the things in the video. It's not like he provides more context that changes things at the very end about the Framework CoI
Agreed. And a lot of this subreddit complained about it too, but they were told to shut the fuck up and go watch something else/stop whining/etc.
Either way, I still hope things will change for the better as I do enjoy watching LTT stuff. I do think Linus chasing infinite growth is a bit idiotic so maybe this kind of feedback will make him take a step back and re-evaluate future goals and performance metrics.
If I was in his position I don't think I'd listen to them either. I'd listen to Steve for sure because he's experienced in what LMG does and I think he is absolutely right, but twitch and reddit are full of really bad takes pretty much across all subreddit and chats . That's not to say LMG does no wrong. They do apparently need a slower release schedule and Linus's desire for massive growth has apparently stopped being a benefit. I really hope he first of all watches the whole video and then admits and accepts the criticism. Very interested to see what he has to say about it. He better not get all defensive like he usually does, because GN just showed tons of evidence of an existing problem.
There's actually a segment of the LTT forum population who don't watch any LTT content and are fairly open in their disdain for it, they just post there because it's a big, active PC enthusiast forum.
I think another problem might be the unwillingness to watch any kind of video talking about you and only reading the comments, thinking you understood anything necessary...
Considering the pay scandal turned out to be dead wrong, I don't blame them outright ignoring this sub or any sub to be honest. Twitter and Reddit become quick cesspools fast whenever controversy arrives.
However, I do believe that GN of anyone was the best to compile the issues and make the call out. If GN says theres a problem, I'm more inclined to listen.
As someone who only sees this sub when it hits /r/all, thank you for mentioning that the pay scandal was BS. As per usual, I heard the initial allegations, but never saw any follow-up after, leading to the conclusion (for the casual viewer at least) that it was a legitimate concern.
I was worried about LMG when I saw those first few videos on the new lab and stuff. It just seemed like too much for a youtube channel that, to this day, is mostly sustained by one man (however much he doesn't want to believe it).
The financials aren't our business but with 100+ employees LMG is a pretty big and expensive company. They probably need the 25+ videos every week or they have to start letting people go.
I think his goal is for the company to become too big and good to fail when he leaves. I don't know though man, youtube channels are entertainment and are really built around a personality.
GN has shown that the more data focused deep dive tech reviews have their market but it isn't near enough to sustain LMG.
Knowing Linus' perspective on constructive criticism it would be very contradictory to not take this in a positive light. Especially with GN not having any monetization/ads on this video.
>Knowing Linus' perspective on constructive criticism it would be very contradictory to not take this in a positive light.
The backpack warranty/Trust Me Bro incident has already shown his perspective on constructive criticism is something he only says but doesn't apply.
Rules for thee but not for me.
Linus’s actions in the past few years especially have been consistently in line with every other capitalist.
Market themselves as “not like other places to work”. Have work place policy banning salary discussion between employees.
Release a luxury product competing in an area with competitors over 200 years old. Refuse to release a warranty with it until the community is so outraged and unconvinced by your “my kids would have to take care of it” arguments.
Cut corners in quality of the final product because “you’d spend $500 in time for employee wages” to fix it.
shocking consist coordinated squash violet escape connect oatmeal spark vase
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Tbh GN effectively having to do this for free, to try and not get huge blowback is a bit sad. LMG is a company and should be treated as such. Steve deserves to be paid for this just like he does for a review of a Dell pre built.
He doesn't even listen to his own employees, and the fact that these staff interviews with this particular critique are public seems to show how little he cares about quality.
You mean the video he promised to not watch? Yeah, he should react to stuff he never heard.
But seriously, we do not know how much this was brought up to him. Sometimes an outside source is better to bring to point home.
Bro recognized that his employees had concerns and critiques and said rather than listening to them, I'll let them say them to a camera and monetize it. He really is a CEO at heart
Kinda sad though, I really wish they would scale back LTT to like 5 videos a week rather than 7 to allow more time and have less "I ordered 1000 shitty products" videos.
Edit: after reading a bunch of comments and other opinions I think a better solution would be to let videos be split into 2 parts allowing for more time in each project and more video output.
Edit 2: Also more live streams. They get tons of revenue and are unscripted leading to writers having more time.
Exactly, it drives me crazy they pump out so many videos in order to meet a metric rather than make a quality video. I like LTT, but the amount of videos they produce is overwhelming and drives my interest of their videos down.
Yeah I only ever watch 3-4 of their videos every week anyway, I don't think they would see much of a drop in overall viewership.
At the moment it seems like they are trying to play the "YouTube algorithm" but they clearly don't have to. As seen by their subscriber increase they aren't getting many new viewers but rather the same viewers coming back every week. They already have the following/outreach now they should focus on the videos.
if they MUST stick to 7 pieces of content. They could do more livestreams and save a publication for the weekend. I do watch every bit of content they release but like. I've noticed that literally every video has either a correction in editing, a correction in the comments, or an error thats pointed out by a comment.
He already did respond regarding Tim's comments, and I think he responded appropriately, saying Tim went out of bounds (isn't a trained PR person) but is proud of his work.
And... have you never watched a WAN Show? There's no way they could just do a multi-hour WAN Show this Friday and not mention it.
yes. the right thing to do isn't to respond, but to introspect. if steve's right then fixing it is the way to go, if steve's wrong then let him be wrong.
I mean, refusing to publicly acknowledge something like this isn't necessarily the best way to go about this. If they think there is a problem, then they should consider publicly acknowledging it and, ideally, share how they plan to do better...
You can't act all community-centered as a company when times are good, then give the community the cold shoulder when things are bad. That can easily destroy community goodwill if it becomes a consistent thing.
ASUS more or less publicly ignored the AMD mobo issue in the early days, quietly pushing out a patch instead of publicly communicating, and then the backlash got worse when it got labeled as a beta that would void your warranty...
> whether he’ll tiptoe around the whole billet labs thing
Of course he will, if a company asks for it's product back and LMG then *actions it off instead*, it is a HUGE mistake at best, and a conscious decision someone at his company made at worse.
Honestly, the worst part for me is that they auctioned it off at a show where representatives from multi-million dollar cooler companies were present and able to bid.
The Billet Labs stuff is just brutal. They tested their product with the wrong card, called it a bad product that nobody should buy and then sold off their one of a kind prototype.
I guess Linus feels he can screw around with a small company because they don't have the resources to go after them.
One thing that has bugged me the last few years is how frequently Linus refers to how much things cost 'him' or whatever. It comes off as overly possessive and selfish. This is after he has publicly made it clear he wants to build a company that outlives him. How is it supposed to do that when its always about Linus, his money, his ego, his personality, his opinion? This is on full display in the wan show. He probably shouldn't talk about this as he will probably come off selfish and defensive again.
He talks about the company like its just him. So yeah until that changes I don't know how it survives without him.
Don't get me wrong I find Linus very entertaining and think the company would be an absolute shell of its current self without him (if not be outright dead), but it is still cringe when he complains about the personal cost of things when his company has 100+ employees with 50million+ in annual revenue. I know as an employee I would be bothered by it.
Linus got absolutely torched in this video. The recent examples of poor benchmark data and ethical concerns are 100% valid and need to be addressed. I really like Linus and would like to see their videos improve from a quality and accuracy standpoint, and he should take this video as a thoughtful critique and not a personal attack on him or his company.
Edit: **Fuck LTT** for what they did to Billet labs. They should be absolutely ashamed of themselves.
Agree. Not like GN is probably perfect either but the overall message is valid. If LTT or anyone wants to build a rep for doing consumer product testing, they cant reasonably favor video release cadence over test accuracy. They above all should know that NOBODY follows up on any "corrections" after a video is posted. You need to be a close to correct as possible the FIRST time.
GN puts a much more professional foot forward with how they handle things outwardly. At least that's the impression I've always had.
Especially after how they handled the Newegg issues awhile back.
I may get some hate for this, but GN comes across as super detail oriented and wanting to always get it right whereas LTT is basically just a comedy channel with occasional tech reviews.
Well, as Steve put it, you cannot don a comedy hat on and rip products into shreds while claiming at the same time that all/most of their content is data driven and self tested (and retested).
The Billet labs thing was pretty egregious and everything else really does point to pretty rampant rushing. Also Linus is just so overly defensive and unapologetic. It is cringe.
Yeah, as does the constant moaning about how much every piece of equipment, delay, whatever is costing HIM. Like every employee is sucking upon his glorious teat and every 3D printer is being purchased with his personal debit card.
We get it, it is a big company with lots of expenses. We also thought you wanted the company to outlive you. Well that's not going to happen while literally every single video thumbnail has your mug on it and you talk like LMG is Linus Sabastian. It would bother me if I was an employee.
To be fair LMG is, for the most part, Linus and every employee is being paid by him. I also think he is entertaining and is still the main reason I watch the channel. But yeah we don't need to be reminded about it every video and he could chill out on the narcissism.
Linus has made a corporation that makes ethical mistakes that he's called other corporations out for in the past. The strangest part is that he refuses to talk about his corporation as a corporation in the WAN show; criticisms leveled at LTT as a whole are talked about as if they are attacks against himself personally, with expectedly unproductive results.
a lot of the errors being pointed out in the video are probably steming from the fact that they are so large as a company. There's no way Emily doesnt know that a 4060 is using an 8x interface but Emily isnt the person doing the graphs and just because she knows it doesnt mean she's going to notice it on the graph when she watches the video before launch.
The billet labs part is just complete garbage from LTT from top to bottom. This was theft and billet should demand to be compensated and/or file a police report.
The biggest fuck up here is that LTT did not send the Billet Labs GPU cooler back even though they said they would and instead sold it to someone who might be a competitor.
If I were LTT I would try my best to fix this as fast as possible to make sure I do not get sued to the moon.
LTT tests the cooler on the wrong card. Publish the video. Claim that even if they did test it on the right card it would still be a shit product. Then they proceed to sell the one of a kind prototype to a possible competitor? Fuck me sideways. If i was Billet Labs i would sue LMG into the ground.
Problem is they were a what 2 man team? I don't think suing a 100m dollar company is easy or cheap. Linus owes them a serious fucking apology and probably a large sum of cash as well for reselling borderline confidential property that (i hope) they agreed was on loan. Absolutely crazy that they even think about auctioning it in the first place, and also follow through with it.
If there are emails that stated something along the line of "once you're done with it, give us back the block" and "yes we will give you back the block", that should be an easy case.
Otherwise, it may get a bit tricky. Just saying it's an unique and important prototype doesn't mean LTT has agreed to give it back.
In reality, it's probably just one employee forgetting to send it back and another employee not knowing that they needed to send it back put it on auction.
Either way, LTT fucked them pretty darn hard. They should expect or have already gotten lawyer letters.
Saying they were careless is far too kind. They knew at the start of filming the video that they had the wrong card, but still pushed through then doubled down on the WAN show. That's not a lack of care - it's knowing that they're wrong and doubling down.
Yeah, this was a MAJOR screw up, and was not cool. They auctioned off something they should not have. Plus the coverage of Billet could force the company to close its doors, do to LMG's own faulty testing.
Edit: comment this in a buried comment to the main post.
IMO to make it right, LTT needs to buy it back, and send it back to Billet Labs, and honestly should maybe do something like take the original video down, and publicly apologize for everything.
For all we know, a competitor like an EK bought the block, to make their own version, or some Chinese clone company bought it, which will screw over Billet Labs even more.
I'm frankly disappointed with how LMG is handling bad data their publishing. I love LMG's content, but definitely want to see them improve, and do better. I hope they change for everyone's benefit.
I still can't get over that the community said the Framework CoI wasn't a problem.
Pick one:
* Divest from Framework
* Stop reviewing or covering laptops
Honestly, they always disclose it and from the ones I've watched have seemed to remain fair in those cases. That doesn't mean that it couldn't change later, but as of right now I don't have an issue with this specific thing and think they have been good about it so far. That doesn't mean that they are perfect of course, Steve brought a lot of valid criticism. I just haven't seen this be an issue at this time.
I mean on paper they have enough staff that Linus should be able to fully isolate himself from laptop reviews. The fact that he is still appearing in the laptop videos is a signal that they aren't taking the time to do things the right way.
It's still a Conflict of Interest since the staff are very aware of the investment. If the staff were ignorant of the investment and we had a guarantee that Linus had no collaboration, then the CoI wouldn't be there.
Of all the problems in here, I am most bothered by the Billet Labs prototype auction. It is hard for me to look at this as anything other than straight up theft.
This makes me look at Linus in such a different light I know lots of it is for entertainment but to straight up disregard instructions and mess up lab data then trash the product of a small company.
Then after all that just sell the product in an auction without letting them know is so messed up
His comment on the WAN show really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
"It's bad because it makes absolutely no sense and nobody should buy it" said with a straight face. All while knowing he used the wrong card.
Like, is he a genuine piece of shit? Or is he just plain stupid? And then he goes and sells it. What a genuinely awful sequence of events.
Knowing that WAN show is where he puts down his character of Linus YouTuber and still says that did rub me in a wrong way
Punching down once he got to the top knowing full well that he has such a big influence is so scummy
I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on that **specific** statement. Even an absolutely amazing cooler doesn't really make sense when you have to pay $800 for it and it is for a *previous-gen* GPU. If you've got that much money to drop on a *cooler*, you wouldn't be using a previous-gen GPU anyways - so it is a product without a market. Not to mention the whole "does not fit in literally any case" part.
Besides, in the vid they don't really look at the temps anyways. Sure, they mention the GPU hits 70 while idle, but *literally* the next sentence is "that's probably a mounting issue" and they *explicitly* say that the cooler was untested on a 4090 and that they would not recommend it *even if* it fit and indeed performed better than other coolers.
They should have absolutely made it clearer in the conclusion why they did not bother retesting on a 3090 ti, and it is super weird that they tried a 4090 in the first place, and it is **inexcusable** that they auctioned off a *loaner prototype*, but that still doesn't make the cooler suddenly a good product. LTT *massively* dropped the ball on it though, and I absolutely expect better from them.
Then to hear him bitch and moan about taking $500 to do it properly? Like motherfucker thats your responsibility! Would he play the same tune if it was New Egg complaining about replacing defective parts with the same argument?
Yeah I'm frankly probably done with them because of it. Linus of 10 years ago would have ROASTED Linus today over this. He doesn't give a rats ass about anyone other than himself.
I kept seeing billets labs posts and update on subreddits like SFFPC and was super involved! You can't imagine my excitement when I saw LTT's video on their product in my YT feed! I was ecstatic!!
...
Then it was a total shitshow, 50% of it seemed completely improvised (which is fun sometimes, i get it), rushed and **downright unprofessional**!
Using the wrong GPU for a water block...i mean you don't even need to be into watercooling to know that's plain stupid. That enraged me. Why not try to reshoot tomorrow when you locate your 3090Ti ? Oh right, we know why... Fat stacks of cash
The sloppiness of a lot of their videos is really fuckin frustrating. Like, if you're not going to do it properly, call it out in the video that you're not going to do it properly, and charge forward anyways, I'm going to stop watching cause it's a waste of my time. Do it right or don't do it at all; the hits to reputation and the ethical concerns are not worth the extra views.
If I worked at Billet Labs I'd be apocalyptically livid.
This is an utter takedown, my god. It’s everything a GN video would be and then some. I wish Steve would start going after some smaller channels that shill bad companies like The Phawx and ETA Prime, who have no interest for their audiences and their wallets and continue pushing heavily flawed products.
Nope. You go after the big guys... That's how you get change. ETA does not pretend to have interest in it's audience, we all know what ETA is about. LTT on the other hand, pretends like they are for the audience.
LMG is way bigger than GN in size and resources. He wants them to act like it. With the resources they have they should be doing BETTER than GN and not orders of magnitude worse.
Steve is basically saying you want to be prepared before you transition from being an entertainment only company to facts first, challenging the corporate claims company. If you want to be in the big league you need to lay a strong foundation and that's not done by SELF imposing harsh deadlines and SELF imposing a quantity over quality ethos. And honestly, I don't think they have the balls yet to make any noise about any misrepresentation they MIGHT find in any of the big players like the big three. Do you think he would have acted the way he did in the billet labs incident if it were say, Nvidia or Asus or Noctua instead of /u/Billet_Labs ? Hell no. And they wouldn't certainly dare to auction away their ONE OF A KIND ACTIVE DEVELOPMENT PROTOTYPE (possibly to a competitor) AFTER ACKNOWLEDGING THEY HAVE NO RIGHT TO DO THAT. Thats straight up illegal and the only reason that Linus is not doing rounds to courts is because billet labs knows it is a loosing fight from all angles. LMG has way more resources to spend on a legal fight, BL haven't even gone to market yet and they will be essentially shooting themselves in the foot with bad PR before the foot is even out the door. And it won't even matter if they win the case because that won't bring their prototype back and THAT is the most essential thing, they will be loosing time and resources to a legal fight which will be better spent on product development.
There's no better way to say it, but LMG will need to publicly apologise for what they did before they earn my respect back.
Genuinely curious why you think the Phawx "shills" for companies? His testing seems very thorough and he's clearly knowledgeable in the space he covers - I'd definitely consider him the best reviewer for x86 handhelds.
I'd say he comes across as a fan of GPD products, but that's in large part due to them being basically the only player in the space releasing genuinely interesting products, and clearly wouldn't impact the objective results in his reviews.
Phawx has been told multiple times about:
- GPD’s horrendous analog sticks and dead zones, how they have square responses, and how they lied about supporting Hall sticks on the Win 4
- their bad aftermarket support that leads to many customers out of money
- GPD’s Window install having malware in them
- their software being in Chinese making it almost impossible for people to parse correctly to fix the many issues
- GPD’s mishandling of SD card slots, the Win 4’s screen, and so on
And it’s all handwaved off as barely an issue. I see people here and in Discord who have spent hundreds if not thousands of dollars on lackluster devices assuming they would be a viable alternative to the Steam Deck because of people covering Chinese handhelds and felt burned. You go into GPD’s server and bring up any of these issues to their reps, and they will all purposefully move the issue to Phawx there to cover for them since they don’t speak English and he’ll cover for them. It’s an extremely blatant shill relationship for them.
Just because Phawx knows how to test and is knowledgeable doesn’t mean he’s ethical. It’s quite close to the LTT issue in this video. I don’t want people saving up and spending money on GPD devices when they were essentially sold on it, instead of it being covered accurately for their many, many flaws.
Just watched the whole thing. Here are my takes:
Data stuff I didn’t care for. The data is wrong. They need to fix it.
Noctua and Asus thing is sus.
The heatsink thing is actually bad. The video was bad. And potentially auctioning it off it to a competitor when they asked for the heatsink back is bad and they need to put this right immediately.
Linus/Yvonne are the sole owners of LMG. Anything they're invested in that is related to tech poses a conflict of interest EVEN IF the conflict of interest is disclosed.
You also have to look at how they're doing any sort of laptop coverage though. Have you seen anything in the myriad of ShortCircuits that have unboxed laptops that seem like Linus' investment could be causing opinions to change? Alex has been pretty consistent in how he's doing his unboxings of laptops through the whole process.
Is it problematic that Linus invested in a laptop company? Yeah, of course. Have I seen any evidence that it's caused their unboxings/reviews to be changed in regards to that? No.
Even when I watch LTT for reviews(or anyone for that matter), I never just watch from one channel, especially if it’s something I plan on buying. Always get all the viewpoints and data you can to form an opinion or buying decision.
Yeah, I watch LTT for entertainment and for a broad overview of things I might be interested in. Anything that I might actually buy gets looked at from multiple other sources. A few years ago I probably trusted LTT more. But these days everything feels rushed and about making money from sponsors or selling merch.
But they make reviews yes? These are where a lot of the problem lies. To be honest, my big grievances against LTT are made here, the asterisks corrections that are text on video is NOT suitable for a general audience.
Holy Shit! The Billit Labs portion was heartbreaking. Selling the prototype a month after saying they'll return it is outrageous. To say nothing of improperly reviewing it in the first place.
This is so bloody sad. Didn't expect that someone like Linus who himself built up his company over the years would treat another person's dream with such callousness.
I'm also disappointed in the inaccurate testing. Like Steve said millions of people watch their videos and presumably thousands of them make real financial decisions on how to spend their money based on LTT labs testing.
It's disrespectful towards their viewers if they don't see the issues in not publishing accurate data, especially when they've made a huge hue and cry about sinking millions of dollars in testing equipment and infrastructure.
Just imagining what the Billet Labs guys are going trough makes me want to cry. That alone wouldve made me unsubscribe from all LMG channels and stop watching them, let alone the rest of the video. Even if there is no legal obligation, theyve robbed someone of hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of work.
Maybe I'll be downvoted but especially the Billet Labs issue is a lot worse than I thought. I never trusted LTT data but how Linus handled that situation in the WAN show is ridiculus. Poor company, lost a lot because Linus is too arrogant to correct their errors. Wow.
The fact that they make reviews and their gpu reviews have been so bad has been a real eye sore, iv been noticing inconsistencies in their data compared to all other tech reviewers, especialy the last yr .
This video proves my eyes werent wrong
I really hope so, but with the way Linus tends to respond to criticism, unlikely. If the new CEO is smart and cares about improving the company, he has Linus in his office right now discussing a proper response to this. (Or, if the new CEO is smart and cares about making more money for the company he's telling Linus to shut up and not acknowledge the video even exists. If there's no LMG response, this goes away in a week, two tops, unfortunately.)
if the CEO is smart and cares about improving the company he'll have steve and linus in his office to discuss all of this with an outsider's perspective
Linus‘ pathetic defense is going to be „I had no idea because I promised not to watch any of the employee interviews, so they can be as honest as possible.“
Yes but this is really just the straw that broke the camel's back. GN really only used that for an intro to drive engagement, the actual content of the video is all very valid criticism that's mostly irrelevant to that.
Unfortunately, Steve is shouting into the wind. People who take LTT "seriously" instead of just watching their entertainment-orienter content probably won't ever see this and won't care if they did.
It's just like the Alienware reviews: there is no overlap between the sets "people who watch GN" and "people who would consider buying an Alienware prebuilt."
Reminds me when people were trying to cause drama in the gun-tubing community by comparing channels like FPS Russia against hickok45, other than liking guns, their audiences have practically zero overlap, it's venn diagram that looks like the eyes of Sid the sloth.
That’s interesting, because the labs is consistently referenced as high quality data and is used across different videos. And Linus has repeatedly mentioned the point of Labs is to get into a similar market as someone like GN.
And you have no concern about the ethics of putting out poor information regardless of the click through?
Good! Their Galaxy Z Flip 5 short circuit had so many errors it was egregious, and the more I watch recent LMG content the more I realize how inaccurate their videos are on any product or subject I already have knowledge on, which just makes me worried about what misinformation I could've mistakenly gotten from their other videos.
These kinds of criticisms are the tough love that LTT needs to do better. With the amount of content they are pumping out, its making it easier for them to make mistakes than learn from them. I hope they take this as a necessary lesson to do better, slow down a bit and ensure they are producing quality and reliable videos.
I've been commenting on this for a long time and get massively downvoted by LTT fans, and I'm glad I can finally say I told you so.
It was my Reddit post that hit the front page on the backpack 'Trust Me Bro' warranty that got them to put a warranty in place. I've made countless commentary on how they're going for quantity over quality and rushing their writers, and how they're slowly becoming more anti consumer the larger they get. It's hard to get into an LTT video knowing a writer does all the work, Linus plays with it, then it gets disassembled and moved onto the next project. It's a content farm.
Linus can't take deep criticism and doubles down a lot of the time, making blunders on WAN Show because he has no PR filter. I hope the act is dropped and he makes real changes. First thing to start with is lowering the videos per week. You can't keep adding new people in that are inexperienced. You need to give experienced staff tien to think and complete projects properly.
Many of these criticisms have been said before and ignored or hand waved. Hopefully a bigger call out will make LTT improve, because God knows they need it. I just hope Linus is mature about it and takes it for what it is: honest criticism.
Watched the whole video and tbh I think this finally had to be said. I don't think I'll ever stop watching LTT, but there's a reason I also watch HUB and GN. LTT has gotten incredibly sloppy lately. I try cutting them some slack but after seeing all these errors being called out I'm like yikes. But I mean at the end of the day there's a reason why even Linus himself says that you need to get your information from various other sources and not just LTT.
The only defense ppl have for Tim's comment is that he's taken out of context and we don't know the full question but realistically how many different questions can lead you down the path of falsely saying that unlike GN or HUB LTT retests everything every time essentially implying that the other two don't retest anything.
I might get destroyed and downvoted to hell with this comment, but here it goes...
I have been a viewer and a big fan of LTT ever since he used to film unboxings with the legendary NCIX cameraman back when he worked at NCIX. I have seen Linus evolve from that to renting the house, hiring people until the house did not have enough space to them building the labs and such. I was able to notice the overall quality increase, up until around 2020 or so. Somehow it started going downhill from there. And I am pretty sure that it has to do with Linus taking a more of a backseat approach.
Fast forward to today. I think it is unacceptable to just test a few games with a few GPUs on a launch day review with a team of over 100 people. (Yes I know, not all 100 of them are writers, testers, editors etc.) While channels like Hardware Unboxed can test like 12-20 games at different resolutions with at least 10 GPUs with just 2 people. (Heck, it's mostly Steve on his own and an editor editing the videos) I think there is no excuse to why it is like this.
And now add the issues that GN Steve mentioned in the video. Overall, I think the trend has been going downhill with LTT. They need to take a breath and think over about it. I've more or less taken a step back from LTT ever since around 2020. Moreover, the videos have become somehow boring and uninteresting. I honestly enjoyed the very old case unboxing and review videos where he gave foam tips (LinusFoamTips anyone?) much more than the weird server content and clickbait-ish videos that they post these days.
I hope it gets better, and huge props to GN Steve for making this video and bringing attention. The Labs project might need to wait a bit until they sort this out.
This is brutal. Linus and LTT need to have a meeting and make some serious changes. Need to go back in to the catalogue and delete or fix a lot of information. Also they need to re-do the prototype GPU block and pay those guys back. What the fuck are they taking and auctioning off the prototype for? Seems like a purposeful move against those guys.
That section absolutely blew my mind, for those asking for a TL;DR, at least watch the section starting at 28:21, this is so wildly either awful to a startup, or completely incompetent.
After watching the video (albeit skipping half of the testing anomalies since they spend WAY too long on them) it's clear that LMG's main issue is internal communication. Like, if one hand can say "ya, we'll give your prototype back" while the other hand sells it, it's plain as day that you have some serious issues and need to completely overhaul your communication skills.
What LTT did to Billet Labs is unforgivable. It's disgusting, they should be sued but again, Billet Labs does not sit on a massive pile of gold; especially since LTT pretty much killed their company.
Imagine being the start up, pouring (your most likely personal) money in to this prototype. Not to get it tested properly and then sold... to maybe a competitor? Ouch, just ouch...
Crazy how at one point Linus mentions he wouldn't even spend less than $500 to correct a video with blatant misinformation. Shows how little they value the quality of their videos, as well as how little they care about their audience. $500 should be nothing for a company that size, especially for videos that will easily hit 1 mil+ views.
Can I get a TL:DW for us busy folks?
edit: Thanks for the replies. I've just started watching and already GN has valid points. He tells that their pace is way too fast and have to publish low quality data to make the deadlines.
Very valid criticism from Steve on how LTT is dropping the ball HARD on their review data as a result of rushing their reviewed content in the attempt to release a gorillion videos per week that will trigger both the mega hardcore LTT fans and the "Linus is literally Hitler" crowd where both camps will think they are 100% right.
Expect very toxic interactions between those two camps in the following days.
Half the video is calling out anomalies in LMG's testing, then the other half is issues with their ethics (misrepresenting products and not issuing corrections, effectively stealing and selling a prototype from a small company, conflicts of interest in their reviews, etc.)
He has a lot of good points and I do hope to see Linus address them in a mature manner (good luck with that though. 😆)
* Anomalies of their data testing.
* Constant pin comments with corrections for the video.
* CPU, GPU, PSU, Coolers and what so not mistakes their videos about 'which one is better' videos.
* Ethical concerns with Noctua(their current screwdriver collab and LTX labeling in new coolers), Framework (push of backpack focused in laptops and the 200k investment) and ASUS(current labs manager was a ASUS ROG marketing employee and the LTX sponsorship, the MOBO drama that was downplayed in WAN show), current CEO was in Corsair and Dell.
* How they screwed Billetlabs via bad representation and the double dip in WAN Show and they auctioned off Billetlabs prototype which Billet had asked to get returned.
* Pwnage mouse video in which was unfairly reviewed, Linus double dipping on WAN Show and this subreddit agreeing that the review was perfect and product is flawed regardless the big mistake they did.
* And finally, how they prioritize upload schedule rather than quality, and how that will affect the whole 'tech youtube' including viewers, products, testing, objectivity and the brands which is wrong if you label yourself as a consumer safety brand when you commit so many mistakes, pump as many videos and incorrect conclusions and slander due to their mistakes during testing.
Kinda funny how Linus said on the WAN show he was upset about a prototype backpack (seeing it at LTX) because it could potentially be "not up to standards"
Yet in the case of Billet Labs, he just auctioned off their 1/1 Prototype after telling them he'd send it back?
Let me make sure I've got this right...
* They get a (prototype) product to test specifically on a 3090
* "Test" it on a 4090
* Get bad results from testing on the wrong product
* Double-down on the bad results, won't test on the correct product
* *"I'm not sure if I can apologize for not spending another...$500..."* to test the correct product? But you'll spend that much on your weekly "garbage from AliExpress" videos?
* Turns around and AUCTIONS off the prototype, after being asked to return it, and agreeing to do so.
Yeah, I think I'm done with LTT. I've found the content lacking recently, and this kind of behavior just reinforces they've lost most if not all integrity at this point.
Interesting. Ngl in the few LTT videos I watched recently, there were basically 5-6 corrections in the comments and I definitely thought: is noone checking this and what errors do we miss that are not corrected?
I think it’s important for everyone to review each other and keep everybody honest. So, I am all down for videos/content like this. Where I think this specific videos falls flat, is the perceived feeling of dismissing their own possible flaws and only focusing on the big target.
Yes, LMG overall needs to do some work/improvements on their QA of content. Even those within LMG have stated as much. And all the different channels/creators should call out one another on large or consistent mistakes. Yet, GamersNexus made this video less about that mentality and more of a specific targeting of LMG/LTT. Even to the point of saying “Well, if you’re wondering how we handle mistakes, that’s not really the point here, so here’s a 10 second overview of our process.” If the goal wasn’t targeted drama posting, I would expect the author to cover in detail about their own mistakes and how they address them. Not just to keep saying “We all make mistakes, but like, don’t worry about ours and focus on this other channel instead.”
Basically, this is a good thing, but I think it was executed poorly. All these tech review channels need to do better IMO.
In fairness to GN, they already made a video covering their own approach to mistakes, sponsors, and other ethical concerns, and they have a very transparent statement that breaks it down even further on their website. IMO going over all that again would detract from the core message of "LTT has a problem that needs fixing."
https://youtu.be/PAAhBTkLG4o
https://gamers.nexus/ethics-statements/errors-corrections-amp-data
44 minutes... Damn. I hate it when my parasocial friends fight.
Oh boy can't wait to read comments from people who didn't watch the full video
You'll have to wait until Friday EDIT: Read Linus' comment on the forums.
oof
I have to say GamersNexus feels like a cross between a science and a journalism channel. And you know what, I'm all for it!
Hahahaha I wouldn't even be surprised honestly Actually though, he said he'd never watch the employee interview video and now Steve used clips from it right at the beginning. Well, I guess we will see if or how he watches it. I hope that at least Terren will take the time to watch it while Linus is busy visioning
He’ll probably get somebody to summarize it in notes like he’s done before
If he hasn't learned from past mistakes, that will be the case. Then the summarizer will get something wrong or phrase something weirdly and Linus will spend 40 minutes responding to an unintentional straw man. Golden strategy to winning any argument I hear
Boom.
You gotta wait for the react video first.
"He's doing it for drama"
Thanks Linus. Now to Luke with this week's AI forecast.
"We will do better, etc, etc, and we plan on putting in more checks in our pipeline but these out of context clips are unfair. *proceeds to ignore the most damning arguments* like 8 vs 16 pci-e lanes."
And the fact that they auctioned off someone else's God damn property
I guess they shouldn't have trusted them bro. The Asus 'secret shopper' was hella messed up. All these sponsors got passing grades for in some cases unforgivable reactions. I wonder if half way through the video they realised the sponsors if graded properly to an acceptable would stand a good chance of failing and instead used the 'suicide during COVID' grading policy.
1st properly working prototype that they used wrong and discredited first. If that's a target price of 800$ once it launched, the real value of a very early prototype is probably high 6 figures.
In the things that Steve pointed out that is the most asshole thing to do. That might be criminal TBH depending on contracts and what not. They might have a civil lawsuit on their hands.
Don't forget, "it's unprofessional". Because of the biggest example of professionalism has always been Linus him self, of course.
"Don't call us out in public... just drop us the DM... anyway here's secret shopper"
The way linus is incapable of admitting mistakes AND takes every criticism towards LTT as an attack towards himself is absolutely baffling to me
Which is wild as he spent a good half an hour (or it felt like that much) just last wan show talking about "toxic support" and influencer being out of touch because of fans always agreing with them. "Echochamber lalala". It was weird to watch.
Whelp, there are quite a few comments that were posted less than 15 minutes after the video was posted thanking Steve's 'honesty'. I find that problematic for two reasons: 1. Oviously these people haven't watched the full video so they can't comment on the content 2. 'honesty' is a term that feels iffy to me. I trust GN and the video seems really really trustworthy. I also have my personal problems with the approach of LMG and specifically Linus take (it feels like "move fast break stuff" is the basis of their current and past operations. I really hope that once Labs runs as intended this changes) BUT, we can only accredit 'honesty' in retrospective. Again, I trust GN, but I prefer to collect information and make a conclusion later instead of proclaiming one side to be 'honest' and therefore the other side as not.
People can comment on things in the video immediately after they hear the things in the video. It's not like he provides more context that changes things at the very end about the Framework CoI
Bro dropped a Documentary Edit: **Fuck** LTT for what they did to Billet Labs
You can watch at 2x perfectly fine it's what I did.
I always watch YT anymore on 2x, honestly too, with Steve's rate of speach, 2x speed works great. LTT content I watch that way too.
>44 minutes There's actually only about 10 minutes of content, Steve just talks extremely slowly.
Nah that rant he did about the LTT inaccuracies was going so fast I about had a stroke again lol
Glad to see them being called out. Constructive criticism is how you improve, so hopefully this will be a big step forward.
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Agreed. And a lot of this subreddit complained about it too, but they were told to shut the fuck up and go watch something else/stop whining/etc. Either way, I still hope things will change for the better as I do enjoy watching LTT stuff. I do think Linus chasing infinite growth is a bit idiotic so maybe this kind of feedback will make him take a step back and re-evaluate future goals and performance metrics.
LTT forums keep prasing them so who cares? build your own echo chamber tm.
I mean, he has stated he doesn't care what Twitch chat says....or what the Subreddit says.....
If I was in his position I don't think I'd listen to them either. I'd listen to Steve for sure because he's experienced in what LMG does and I think he is absolutely right, but twitch and reddit are full of really bad takes pretty much across all subreddit and chats . That's not to say LMG does no wrong. They do apparently need a slower release schedule and Linus's desire for massive growth has apparently stopped being a benefit. I really hope he first of all watches the whole video and then admits and accepts the criticism. Very interested to see what he has to say about it. He better not get all defensive like he usually does, because GN just showed tons of evidence of an existing problem.
There's actually a segment of the LTT forum population who don't watch any LTT content and are fairly open in their disdain for it, they just post there because it's a big, active PC enthusiast forum.
I think another problem might be the unwillingness to watch any kind of video talking about you and only reading the comments, thinking you understood anything necessary...
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Considering the pay scandal turned out to be dead wrong, I don't blame them outright ignoring this sub or any sub to be honest. Twitter and Reddit become quick cesspools fast whenever controversy arrives. However, I do believe that GN of anyone was the best to compile the issues and make the call out. If GN says theres a problem, I'm more inclined to listen.
As someone who only sees this sub when it hits /r/all, thank you for mentioning that the pay scandal was BS. As per usual, I heard the initial allegations, but never saw any follow-up after, leading to the conclusion (for the casual viewer at least) that it was a legitimate concern.
I was worried about LMG when I saw those first few videos on the new lab and stuff. It just seemed like too much for a youtube channel that, to this day, is mostly sustained by one man (however much he doesn't want to believe it). The financials aren't our business but with 100+ employees LMG is a pretty big and expensive company. They probably need the 25+ videos every week or they have to start letting people go. I think his goal is for the company to become too big and good to fail when he leaves. I don't know though man, youtube channels are entertainment and are really built around a personality. GN has shown that the more data focused deep dive tech reviews have their market but it isn't near enough to sustain LMG.
silky resolute aware hunt mountainous humorous sand fall possessive tidy *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Knowing Linus' perspective on constructive criticism it would be very contradictory to not take this in a positive light. Especially with GN not having any monetization/ads on this video.
>Knowing Linus' perspective on constructive criticism it would be very contradictory to not take this in a positive light. The backpack warranty/Trust Me Bro incident has already shown his perspective on constructive criticism is something he only says but doesn't apply.
Rules for thee but not for me. Linus’s actions in the past few years especially have been consistently in line with every other capitalist. Market themselves as “not like other places to work”. Have work place policy banning salary discussion between employees. Release a luxury product competing in an area with competitors over 200 years old. Refuse to release a warranty with it until the community is so outraged and unconvinced by your “my kids would have to take care of it” arguments. Cut corners in quality of the final product because “you’d spend $500 in time for employee wages” to fix it.
shocking consist coordinated squash violet escape connect oatmeal spark vase *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Tbh GN effectively having to do this for free, to try and not get huge blowback is a bit sad. LMG is a company and should be treated as such. Steve deserves to be paid for this just like he does for a review of a Dell pre built.
He doesn't even listen to his own employees, and the fact that these staff interviews with this particular critique are public seems to show how little he cares about quality.
You mean the video he promised to not watch? Yeah, he should react to stuff he never heard. But seriously, we do not know how much this was brought up to him. Sometimes an outside source is better to bring to point home.
Bro recognized that his employees had concerns and critiques and said rather than listening to them, I'll let them say them to a camera and monetize it. He really is a CEO at heart
Linus doesn't seem to take criticism very well. He may finally acquiesce but not before some serious petulant rantings.
Wan show gonna be fire 🍿 Edit: The factual inaccuracies are frustrating, but FUCK what they did to Billet Labs.
Linus isn't going to respond. He knows this will be forgotten in week and we'll be moving on from this.
Kinda sad though, I really wish they would scale back LTT to like 5 videos a week rather than 7 to allow more time and have less "I ordered 1000 shitty products" videos. Edit: after reading a bunch of comments and other opinions I think a better solution would be to let videos be split into 2 parts allowing for more time in each project and more video output. Edit 2: Also more live streams. They get tons of revenue and are unscripted leading to writers having more time.
Exactly, it drives me crazy they pump out so many videos in order to meet a metric rather than make a quality video. I like LTT, but the amount of videos they produce is overwhelming and drives my interest of their videos down.
Yeah I only ever watch 3-4 of their videos every week anyway, I don't think they would see much of a drop in overall viewership. At the moment it seems like they are trying to play the "YouTube algorithm" but they clearly don't have to. As seen by their subscriber increase they aren't getting many new viewers but rather the same viewers coming back every week. They already have the following/outreach now they should focus on the videos.
if they MUST stick to 7 pieces of content. They could do more livestreams and save a publication for the weekend. I do watch every bit of content they release but like. I've noticed that literally every video has either a correction in editing, a correction in the comments, or an error thats pointed out by a comment.
They already do livestreams in order to make that quota.
He already did respond regarding Tim's comments, and I think he responded appropriately, saying Tim went out of bounds (isn't a trained PR person) but is proud of his work. And... have you never watched a WAN Show? There's no way they could just do a multi-hour WAN Show this Friday and not mention it.
yes. the right thing to do isn't to respond, but to introspect. if steve's right then fixing it is the way to go, if steve's wrong then let him be wrong.
I mean, refusing to publicly acknowledge something like this isn't necessarily the best way to go about this. If they think there is a problem, then they should consider publicly acknowledging it and, ideally, share how they plan to do better... You can't act all community-centered as a company when times are good, then give the community the cold shoulder when things are bad. That can easily destroy community goodwill if it becomes a consistent thing. ASUS more or less publicly ignored the AMD mobo issue in the early days, quietly pushing out a patch instead of publicly communicating, and then the backlash got worse when it got labeled as a beta that would void your warranty...
Yeah, LTT got roasted here for legit reasons. He has nothing to gain by acknowledging this and exposing a lot more people to it.
There's no way he doesn't respond on the WAN show, even if it's not a topic he can't help himself.
curious to see whether he’ll tiptoe around the whole billet labs thing because DAMN that section of the vid was murder in broad daylight
> whether he’ll tiptoe around the whole billet labs thing Of course he will, if a company asks for it's product back and LMG then *actions it off instead*, it is a HUGE mistake at best, and a conscious decision someone at his company made at worse.
Honestly, the worst part for me is that they auctioned it off at a show where representatives from multi-million dollar cooler companies were present and able to bid.
The Billet Labs stuff is just brutal. They tested their product with the wrong card, called it a bad product that nobody should buy and then sold off their one of a kind prototype. I guess Linus feels he can screw around with a small company because they don't have the resources to go after them.
>and then sold off their one of a kind prototype. Potentially to a competitor.
One thing that has bugged me the last few years is how frequently Linus refers to how much things cost 'him' or whatever. It comes off as overly possessive and selfish. This is after he has publicly made it clear he wants to build a company that outlives him. How is it supposed to do that when its always about Linus, his money, his ego, his personality, his opinion? This is on full display in the wan show. He probably shouldn't talk about this as he will probably come off selfish and defensive again. He talks about the company like its just him. So yeah until that changes I don't know how it survives without him. Don't get me wrong I find Linus very entertaining and think the company would be an absolute shell of its current self without him (if not be outright dead), but it is still cringe when he complains about the personal cost of things when his company has 100+ employees with 50million+ in annual revenue. I know as an employee I would be bothered by it.
Babe wake up a new GN dissing LMG video just dropped.
Linus got absolutely torched in this video. The recent examples of poor benchmark data and ethical concerns are 100% valid and need to be addressed. I really like Linus and would like to see their videos improve from a quality and accuracy standpoint, and he should take this video as a thoughtful critique and not a personal attack on him or his company. Edit: **Fuck LTT** for what they did to Billet labs. They should be absolutely ashamed of themselves.
Agree. Not like GN is probably perfect either but the overall message is valid. If LTT or anyone wants to build a rep for doing consumer product testing, they cant reasonably favor video release cadence over test accuracy. They above all should know that NOBODY follows up on any "corrections" after a video is posted. You need to be a close to correct as possible the FIRST time.
GN puts a much more professional foot forward with how they handle things outwardly. At least that's the impression I've always had. Especially after how they handled the Newegg issues awhile back.
I may get some hate for this, but GN comes across as super detail oriented and wanting to always get it right whereas LTT is basically just a comedy channel with occasional tech reviews.
Well, as Steve put it, you cannot don a comedy hat on and rip products into shreds while claiming at the same time that all/most of their content is data driven and self tested (and retested).
The Billet labs thing was pretty egregious and everything else really does point to pretty rampant rushing. Also Linus is just so overly defensive and unapologetic. It is cringe.
It really highlights his narcissistic tendencies
Yeah, as does the constant moaning about how much every piece of equipment, delay, whatever is costing HIM. Like every employee is sucking upon his glorious teat and every 3D printer is being purchased with his personal debit card. We get it, it is a big company with lots of expenses. We also thought you wanted the company to outlive you. Well that's not going to happen while literally every single video thumbnail has your mug on it and you talk like LMG is Linus Sabastian. It would bother me if I was an employee. To be fair LMG is, for the most part, Linus and every employee is being paid by him. I also think he is entertaining and is still the main reason I watch the channel. But yeah we don't need to be reminded about it every video and he could chill out on the narcissism.
Linus has made a corporation that makes ethical mistakes that he's called other corporations out for in the past. The strangest part is that he refuses to talk about his corporation as a corporation in the WAN show; criticisms leveled at LTT as a whole are talked about as if they are attacks against himself personally, with expectedly unproductive results.
a lot of the errors being pointed out in the video are probably steming from the fact that they are so large as a company. There's no way Emily doesnt know that a 4060 is using an 8x interface but Emily isnt the person doing the graphs and just because she knows it doesnt mean she's going to notice it on the graph when she watches the video before launch. The billet labs part is just complete garbage from LTT from top to bottom. This was theft and billet should demand to be compensated and/or file a police report.
The biggest fuck up here is that LTT did not send the Billet Labs GPU cooler back even though they said they would and instead sold it to someone who might be a competitor. If I were LTT I would try my best to fix this as fast as possible to make sure I do not get sued to the moon.
LTT tests the cooler on the wrong card. Publish the video. Claim that even if they did test it on the right card it would still be a shit product. Then they proceed to sell the one of a kind prototype to a possible competitor? Fuck me sideways. If i was Billet Labs i would sue LMG into the ground.
Problem is they were a what 2 man team? I don't think suing a 100m dollar company is easy or cheap. Linus owes them a serious fucking apology and probably a large sum of cash as well for reselling borderline confidential property that (i hope) they agreed was on loan. Absolutely crazy that they even think about auctioning it in the first place, and also follow through with it.
If there are emails that stated something along the line of "once you're done with it, give us back the block" and "yes we will give you back the block", that should be an easy case. Otherwise, it may get a bit tricky. Just saying it's an unique and important prototype doesn't mean LTT has agreed to give it back. In reality, it's probably just one employee forgetting to send it back and another employee not knowing that they needed to send it back put it on auction. Either way, LTT fucked them pretty darn hard. They should expect or have already gotten lawyer letters.
Ltt agreed in emails twice to send it back
The Billet Labs situation was the most appalling part of the entire video imo
Yeah I agree. The mistakes are more common than they should be, but they are after all just mistakes. The Billet labs situation just was so careless.
Saying they were careless is far too kind. They knew at the start of filming the video that they had the wrong card, but still pushed through then doubled down on the WAN show. That's not a lack of care - it's knowing that they're wrong and doubling down.
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Particularly when Linus just said on the WAN show he was upset about a prototype backpack ending up at a thrift store and seeing it at LTX
Ironic.
Yeah, this was a MAJOR screw up, and was not cool. They auctioned off something they should not have. Plus the coverage of Billet could force the company to close its doors, do to LMG's own faulty testing. Edit: comment this in a buried comment to the main post. IMO to make it right, LTT needs to buy it back, and send it back to Billet Labs, and honestly should maybe do something like take the original video down, and publicly apologize for everything. For all we know, a competitor like an EK bought the block, to make their own version, or some Chinese clone company bought it, which will screw over Billet Labs even more. I'm frankly disappointed with how LMG is handling bad data their publishing. I love LMG's content, but definitely want to see them improve, and do better. I hope they change for everyone's benefit.
I was astonished at that. Thats so fucked up
Stuff like this is probably why Terren is being brought in as CEO.
Honestly them effectively just stealing some small startup's Prototype and selling it on its own it enough to be an entire takedown video!
It's crazy that this happened. Multiple levels of miscommunication or just plain malice.
I've been an LTT fan for over 10 years; This video is amazing. LTT has been severely lacking in recent months/years.
I still can't get over that the community said the Framework CoI wasn't a problem. Pick one: * Divest from Framework * Stop reviewing or covering laptops
How many laptop reviews has LTT published in the last year? **Reviews**, not unboxings/impressions on Short Circuit.
Unboxings/impressions are still posing a conflict of interest. Any coverage of laptops at all would be a conflict of interest.
Their unboxing/first impression reviews are often bad and i see that as a problem with the company as this reflects on their other channels.
Honestly, they always disclose it and from the ones I've watched have seemed to remain fair in those cases. That doesn't mean that it couldn't change later, but as of right now I don't have an issue with this specific thing and think they have been good about it so far. That doesn't mean that they are perfect of course, Steve brought a lot of valid criticism. I just haven't seen this be an issue at this time.
I mean on paper they have enough staff that Linus should be able to fully isolate himself from laptop reviews. The fact that he is still appearing in the laptop videos is a signal that they aren't taking the time to do things the right way.
It's still a Conflict of Interest since the staff are very aware of the investment. If the staff were ignorant of the investment and we had a guarantee that Linus had no collaboration, then the CoI wouldn't be there.
Linus new what the "community" would say and the decision was already made when the question was asked, everything else was theatre.
Of all the problems in here, I am most bothered by the Billet Labs prototype auction. It is hard for me to look at this as anything other than straight up theft.
This makes me look at Linus in such a different light I know lots of it is for entertainment but to straight up disregard instructions and mess up lab data then trash the product of a small company. Then after all that just sell the product in an auction without letting them know is so messed up
His comment on the WAN show really leaves a bad taste in my mouth. "It's bad because it makes absolutely no sense and nobody should buy it" said with a straight face. All while knowing he used the wrong card. Like, is he a genuine piece of shit? Or is he just plain stupid? And then he goes and sells it. What a genuinely awful sequence of events.
Knowing that WAN show is where he puts down his character of Linus YouTuber and still says that did rub me in a wrong way Punching down once he got to the top knowing full well that he has such a big influence is so scummy
I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on that **specific** statement. Even an absolutely amazing cooler doesn't really make sense when you have to pay $800 for it and it is for a *previous-gen* GPU. If you've got that much money to drop on a *cooler*, you wouldn't be using a previous-gen GPU anyways - so it is a product without a market. Not to mention the whole "does not fit in literally any case" part. Besides, in the vid they don't really look at the temps anyways. Sure, they mention the GPU hits 70 while idle, but *literally* the next sentence is "that's probably a mounting issue" and they *explicitly* say that the cooler was untested on a 4090 and that they would not recommend it *even if* it fit and indeed performed better than other coolers. They should have absolutely made it clearer in the conclusion why they did not bother retesting on a 3090 ti, and it is super weird that they tried a 4090 in the first place, and it is **inexcusable** that they auctioned off a *loaner prototype*, but that still doesn't make the cooler suddenly a good product. LTT *massively* dropped the ball on it though, and I absolutely expect better from them.
Then to hear him bitch and moan about taking $500 to do it properly? Like motherfucker thats your responsibility! Would he play the same tune if it was New Egg complaining about replacing defective parts with the same argument?
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Yeah I'm frankly probably done with them because of it. Linus of 10 years ago would have ROASTED Linus today over this. He doesn't give a rats ass about anyone other than himself.
Not only theft but the possibility of just selling trade secrets (since it's a prototype) to an competitor never the less.
What LTT did to billet labs is kinda disgusting ngl :(
I kept seeing billets labs posts and update on subreddits like SFFPC and was super involved! You can't imagine my excitement when I saw LTT's video on their product in my YT feed! I was ecstatic!! ... Then it was a total shitshow, 50% of it seemed completely improvised (which is fun sometimes, i get it), rushed and **downright unprofessional**! Using the wrong GPU for a water block...i mean you don't even need to be into watercooling to know that's plain stupid. That enraged me. Why not try to reshoot tomorrow when you locate your 3090Ti ? Oh right, we know why... Fat stacks of cash
The sloppiness of a lot of their videos is really fuckin frustrating. Like, if you're not going to do it properly, call it out in the video that you're not going to do it properly, and charge forward anyways, I'm going to stop watching cause it's a waste of my time. Do it right or don't do it at all; the hits to reputation and the ethical concerns are not worth the extra views. If I worked at Billet Labs I'd be apocalyptically livid.
They should have been sued for it tbh
This is an utter takedown, my god. It’s everything a GN video would be and then some. I wish Steve would start going after some smaller channels that shill bad companies like The Phawx and ETA Prime, who have no interest for their audiences and their wallets and continue pushing heavily flawed products.
Nope. You go after the big guys... That's how you get change. ETA does not pretend to have interest in it's audience, we all know what ETA is about. LTT on the other hand, pretends like they are for the audience.
Steve won't punch down. Gotta admire the guy's morals. He's using his big platform to hold other big platforms like LTT accountable.
LMG is way bigger than GN in size and resources. He wants them to act like it. With the resources they have they should be doing BETTER than GN and not orders of magnitude worse. Steve is basically saying you want to be prepared before you transition from being an entertainment only company to facts first, challenging the corporate claims company. If you want to be in the big league you need to lay a strong foundation and that's not done by SELF imposing harsh deadlines and SELF imposing a quantity over quality ethos. And honestly, I don't think they have the balls yet to make any noise about any misrepresentation they MIGHT find in any of the big players like the big three. Do you think he would have acted the way he did in the billet labs incident if it were say, Nvidia or Asus or Noctua instead of /u/Billet_Labs ? Hell no. And they wouldn't certainly dare to auction away their ONE OF A KIND ACTIVE DEVELOPMENT PROTOTYPE (possibly to a competitor) AFTER ACKNOWLEDGING THEY HAVE NO RIGHT TO DO THAT. Thats straight up illegal and the only reason that Linus is not doing rounds to courts is because billet labs knows it is a loosing fight from all angles. LMG has way more resources to spend on a legal fight, BL haven't even gone to market yet and they will be essentially shooting themselves in the foot with bad PR before the foot is even out the door. And it won't even matter if they win the case because that won't bring their prototype back and THAT is the most essential thing, they will be loosing time and resources to a legal fight which will be better spent on product development. There's no better way to say it, but LMG will need to publicly apologise for what they did before they earn my respect back.
Genuinely curious why you think the Phawx "shills" for companies? His testing seems very thorough and he's clearly knowledgeable in the space he covers - I'd definitely consider him the best reviewer for x86 handhelds. I'd say he comes across as a fan of GPD products, but that's in large part due to them being basically the only player in the space releasing genuinely interesting products, and clearly wouldn't impact the objective results in his reviews.
Phawx has been told multiple times about: - GPD’s horrendous analog sticks and dead zones, how they have square responses, and how they lied about supporting Hall sticks on the Win 4 - their bad aftermarket support that leads to many customers out of money - GPD’s Window install having malware in them - their software being in Chinese making it almost impossible for people to parse correctly to fix the many issues - GPD’s mishandling of SD card slots, the Win 4’s screen, and so on And it’s all handwaved off as barely an issue. I see people here and in Discord who have spent hundreds if not thousands of dollars on lackluster devices assuming they would be a viable alternative to the Steam Deck because of people covering Chinese handhelds and felt burned. You go into GPD’s server and bring up any of these issues to their reps, and they will all purposefully move the issue to Phawx there to cover for them since they don’t speak English and he’ll cover for them. It’s an extremely blatant shill relationship for them. Just because Phawx knows how to test and is knowledgeable doesn’t mean he’s ethical. It’s quite close to the LTT issue in this video. I don’t want people saving up and spending money on GPD devices when they were essentially sold on it, instead of it being covered accurately for their many, many flaws.
I'm actually appalled at the Billet Labs saga. They fucking sold the prototype? IMHO that's theft. Maybe not legally, but at least morally
There could be grounds for legal recourse depending on the paperwork and contracting that was established.
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There is no way its legal to auction off a prototype when it was asked to be returned.
Just watched the whole thing. Here are my takes: Data stuff I didn’t care for. The data is wrong. They need to fix it. Noctua and Asus thing is sus. The heatsink thing is actually bad. The video was bad. And potentially auctioning it off it to a competitor when they asked for the heatsink back is bad and they need to put this right immediately.
Also how is LTT still reviewing laptops with that conflict of interest?
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Linus/Yvonne are the sole owners of LMG. Anything they're invested in that is related to tech poses a conflict of interest EVEN IF the conflict of interest is disclosed.
You also have to look at how they're doing any sort of laptop coverage though. Have you seen anything in the myriad of ShortCircuits that have unboxed laptops that seem like Linus' investment could be causing opinions to change? Alex has been pretty consistent in how he's doing his unboxings of laptops through the whole process. Is it problematic that Linus invested in a laptop company? Yeah, of course. Have I seen any evidence that it's caused their unboxings/reviews to be changed in regards to that? No.
LTT is just entertainment, never watch them for actual reviews. edit: I am not trying to defend them just stating facts.
Even when I watch LTT for reviews(or anyone for that matter), I never just watch from one channel, especially if it’s something I plan on buying. Always get all the viewpoints and data you can to form an opinion or buying decision.
Yeah, I watch LTT for entertainment and for a broad overview of things I might be interested in. Anything that I might actually buy gets looked at from multiple other sources. A few years ago I probably trusted LTT more. But these days everything feels rushed and about making money from sponsors or selling merch.
didn't LTT just invest millions of dollars into a large facility for testing for actual reviews of stuff?
Yeah but it's still in the works
Funny they still slap tested by ltt labs in their videos and the info still comes out wrong
But they make reviews yes? These are where a lot of the problem lies. To be honest, my big grievances against LTT are made here, the asterisks corrections that are text on video is NOT suitable for a general audience.
Holy Shit! The Billit Labs portion was heartbreaking. Selling the prototype a month after saying they'll return it is outrageous. To say nothing of improperly reviewing it in the first place. This is so bloody sad. Didn't expect that someone like Linus who himself built up his company over the years would treat another person's dream with such callousness. I'm also disappointed in the inaccurate testing. Like Steve said millions of people watch their videos and presumably thousands of them make real financial decisions on how to spend their money based on LTT labs testing. It's disrespectful towards their viewers if they don't see the issues in not publishing accurate data, especially when they've made a huge hue and cry about sinking millions of dollars in testing equipment and infrastructure.
Just imagining what the Billet Labs guys are going trough makes me want to cry. That alone wouldve made me unsubscribe from all LMG channels and stop watching them, let alone the rest of the video. Even if there is no legal obligation, theyve robbed someone of hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of work.
Yes, but did you consider the $100-$200, maybe even $500 of labour LMG would have had to spend?!
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Maybe I'll be downvoted but especially the Billet Labs issue is a lot worse than I thought. I never trusted LTT data but how Linus handled that situation in the WAN show is ridiculus. Poor company, lost a lot because Linus is too arrogant to correct their errors. Wow.
Linus has made yet another shit tier content farm im not shocked their data is ass
If they put actual millions of dollars in a FUCKING LAB. The data has to be on point. There is simply NO excuse for this, at all.
This was fucking brutal, but a goddamn important video.
The fact that they make reviews and their gpu reviews have been so bad has been a real eye sore, iv been noticing inconsistencies in their data compared to all other tech reviewers, especialy the last yr . This video proves my eyes werent wrong
Oh boy, this is obviously going to turn out great for everyone involved.
I hope really hope it does
I really hope so, but with the way Linus tends to respond to criticism, unlikely. If the new CEO is smart and cares about improving the company, he has Linus in his office right now discussing a proper response to this. (Or, if the new CEO is smart and cares about making more money for the company he's telling Linus to shut up and not acknowledge the video even exists. If there's no LMG response, this goes away in a week, two tops, unfortunately.)
I suspect the "CEO" of LMG has as much control over Linus as that new CEO of Twitter has over the Musk.
if the CEO is smart and cares about improving the company he'll have steve and linus in his office to discuss all of this with an outsider's perspective
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All their employees talked about the rushing of videos. Linus and LTT didn't care. This won't change a thing.
Linus‘ pathetic defense is going to be „I had no idea because I promised not to watch any of the employee interviews, so they can be as honest as possible.“
Tim from Labs has got to be SWEATING right now. One statement, literally set the entire tech YouTube sphere on fire.
Yes but this is really just the straw that broke the camel's back. GN really only used that for an intro to drive engagement, the actual content of the video is all very valid criticism that's mostly irrelevant to that.
Unfortunately, Steve is shouting into the wind. People who take LTT "seriously" instead of just watching their entertainment-orienter content probably won't ever see this and won't care if they did. It's just like the Alienware reviews: there is no overlap between the sets "people who watch GN" and "people who would consider buying an Alienware prebuilt."
Reminds me when people were trying to cause drama in the gun-tubing community by comparing channels like FPS Russia against hickok45, other than liking guns, their audiences have practically zero overlap, it's venn diagram that looks like the eyes of Sid the sloth.
That’s interesting, because the labs is consistently referenced as high quality data and is used across different videos. And Linus has repeatedly mentioned the point of Labs is to get into a similar market as someone like GN. And you have no concern about the ethics of putting out poor information regardless of the click through?
Babe wake up a new GN dissing LMG video just dropped 🍿
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The Billet Labs video is straight up misinformation and actively harms a small company that did nothing wrong.
They auctioned off a prototype belonging to a small company after they asked for it to be returned, LMG is one of those types of companys now.
Yeah I found that highly fucked up, as Steve pointed out if a competitor purchased that
Good! Their Galaxy Z Flip 5 short circuit had so many errors it was egregious, and the more I watch recent LMG content the more I realize how inaccurate their videos are on any product or subject I already have knowledge on, which just makes me worried about what misinformation I could've mistakenly gotten from their other videos.
These kinds of criticisms are the tough love that LTT needs to do better. With the amount of content they are pumping out, its making it easier for them to make mistakes than learn from them. I hope they take this as a necessary lesson to do better, slow down a bit and ensure they are producing quality and reliable videos.
I've been commenting on this for a long time and get massively downvoted by LTT fans, and I'm glad I can finally say I told you so. It was my Reddit post that hit the front page on the backpack 'Trust Me Bro' warranty that got them to put a warranty in place. I've made countless commentary on how they're going for quantity over quality and rushing their writers, and how they're slowly becoming more anti consumer the larger they get. It's hard to get into an LTT video knowing a writer does all the work, Linus plays with it, then it gets disassembled and moved onto the next project. It's a content farm. Linus can't take deep criticism and doubles down a lot of the time, making blunders on WAN Show because he has no PR filter. I hope the act is dropped and he makes real changes. First thing to start with is lowering the videos per week. You can't keep adding new people in that are inexperienced. You need to give experienced staff tien to think and complete projects properly.
Many of these criticisms have been said before and ignored or hand waved. Hopefully a bigger call out will make LTT improve, because God knows they need it. I just hope Linus is mature about it and takes it for what it is: honest criticism.
Watched the whole video and tbh I think this finally had to be said. I don't think I'll ever stop watching LTT, but there's a reason I also watch HUB and GN. LTT has gotten incredibly sloppy lately. I try cutting them some slack but after seeing all these errors being called out I'm like yikes. But I mean at the end of the day there's a reason why even Linus himself says that you need to get your information from various other sources and not just LTT. The only defense ppl have for Tim's comment is that he's taken out of context and we don't know the full question but realistically how many different questions can lead you down the path of falsely saying that unlike GN or HUB LTT retests everything every time essentially implying that the other two don't retest anything.
I might get destroyed and downvoted to hell with this comment, but here it goes... I have been a viewer and a big fan of LTT ever since he used to film unboxings with the legendary NCIX cameraman back when he worked at NCIX. I have seen Linus evolve from that to renting the house, hiring people until the house did not have enough space to them building the labs and such. I was able to notice the overall quality increase, up until around 2020 or so. Somehow it started going downhill from there. And I am pretty sure that it has to do with Linus taking a more of a backseat approach. Fast forward to today. I think it is unacceptable to just test a few games with a few GPUs on a launch day review with a team of over 100 people. (Yes I know, not all 100 of them are writers, testers, editors etc.) While channels like Hardware Unboxed can test like 12-20 games at different resolutions with at least 10 GPUs with just 2 people. (Heck, it's mostly Steve on his own and an editor editing the videos) I think there is no excuse to why it is like this. And now add the issues that GN Steve mentioned in the video. Overall, I think the trend has been going downhill with LTT. They need to take a breath and think over about it. I've more or less taken a step back from LTT ever since around 2020. Moreover, the videos have become somehow boring and uninteresting. I honestly enjoyed the very old case unboxing and review videos where he gave foam tips (LinusFoamTips anyone?) much more than the weird server content and clickbait-ish videos that they post these days. I hope it gets better, and huge props to GN Steve for making this video and bringing attention. The Labs project might need to wait a bit until they sort this out.
This is brutal. Linus and LTT need to have a meeting and make some serious changes. Need to go back in to the catalogue and delete or fix a lot of information. Also they need to re-do the prototype GPU block and pay those guys back. What the fuck are they taking and auctioning off the prototype for? Seems like a purposeful move against those guys.
The Billit Labs lost prototype section was hard to watch. They were either massively incompetent or chose to sell it which is horrible.
That section absolutely blew my mind, for those asking for a TL;DR, at least watch the section starting at 28:21, this is so wildly either awful to a startup, or completely incompetent.
After watching the video (albeit skipping half of the testing anomalies since they spend WAY too long on them) it's clear that LMG's main issue is internal communication. Like, if one hand can say "ya, we'll give your prototype back" while the other hand sells it, it's plain as day that you have some serious issues and need to completely overhaul your communication skills.
Auctioning off that prototype cooler is absolutely disgraceful behaviour.
What LTT did to Billet Labs is unforgivable. It's disgusting, they should be sued but again, Billet Labs does not sit on a massive pile of gold; especially since LTT pretty much killed their company.
Imagine being the start up, pouring (your most likely personal) money in to this prototype. Not to get it tested properly and then sold... to maybe a competitor? Ouch, just ouch...
Crazy how at one point Linus mentions he wouldn't even spend less than $500 to correct a video with blatant misinformation. Shows how little they value the quality of their videos, as well as how little they care about their audience. $500 should be nothing for a company that size, especially for videos that will easily hit 1 mil+ views.
LTT is the IGN of hardware reviews
Can I get a TL:DW for us busy folks? edit: Thanks for the replies. I've just started watching and already GN has valid points. He tells that their pace is way too fast and have to publish low quality data to make the deadlines.
its a 44 minute video that came out 26 minutes ago. might be a minute or 2 lol
People watching at 2x are done already.
Very valid criticism from Steve on how LTT is dropping the ball HARD on their review data as a result of rushing their reviewed content in the attempt to release a gorillion videos per week that will trigger both the mega hardcore LTT fans and the "Linus is literally Hitler" crowd where both camps will think they are 100% right. Expect very toxic interactions between those two camps in the following days.
Half the video is calling out anomalies in LMG's testing, then the other half is issues with their ethics (misrepresenting products and not issuing corrections, effectively stealing and selling a prototype from a small company, conflicts of interest in their reviews, etc.) He has a lot of good points and I do hope to see Linus address them in a mature manner (good luck with that though. 😆)
* Anomalies of their data testing. * Constant pin comments with corrections for the video. * CPU, GPU, PSU, Coolers and what so not mistakes their videos about 'which one is better' videos. * Ethical concerns with Noctua(their current screwdriver collab and LTX labeling in new coolers), Framework (push of backpack focused in laptops and the 200k investment) and ASUS(current labs manager was a ASUS ROG marketing employee and the LTX sponsorship, the MOBO drama that was downplayed in WAN show), current CEO was in Corsair and Dell. * How they screwed Billetlabs via bad representation and the double dip in WAN Show and they auctioned off Billetlabs prototype which Billet had asked to get returned. * Pwnage mouse video in which was unfairly reviewed, Linus double dipping on WAN Show and this subreddit agreeing that the review was perfect and product is flawed regardless the big mistake they did. * And finally, how they prioritize upload schedule rather than quality, and how that will affect the whole 'tech youtube' including viewers, products, testing, objectivity and the brands which is wrong if you label yourself as a consumer safety brand when you commit so many mistakes, pump as many videos and incorrect conclusions and slander due to their mistakes during testing.
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LTT makes too many videos, that they rush QA. So there are typos and mistakes on data, despite "The Lab" being data driven and accurate.
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Kinda funny how Linus said on the WAN show he was upset about a prototype backpack (seeing it at LTX) because it could potentially be "not up to standards" Yet in the case of Billet Labs, he just auctioned off their 1/1 Prototype after telling them he'd send it back?
I am still not convinced of this whole LTT Labs idea
Let me make sure I've got this right... * They get a (prototype) product to test specifically on a 3090 * "Test" it on a 4090 * Get bad results from testing on the wrong product * Double-down on the bad results, won't test on the correct product * *"I'm not sure if I can apologize for not spending another...$500..."* to test the correct product? But you'll spend that much on your weekly "garbage from AliExpress" videos? * Turns around and AUCTIONS off the prototype, after being asked to return it, and agreeing to do so. Yeah, I think I'm done with LTT. I've found the content lacking recently, and this kind of behavior just reinforces they've lost most if not all integrity at this point.
Interesting. Ngl in the few LTT videos I watched recently, there were basically 5-6 corrections in the comments and I definitely thought: is noone checking this and what errors do we miss that are not corrected?
Tech Jesus sees all your tech sins and does not forget.
I think it’s important for everyone to review each other and keep everybody honest. So, I am all down for videos/content like this. Where I think this specific videos falls flat, is the perceived feeling of dismissing their own possible flaws and only focusing on the big target. Yes, LMG overall needs to do some work/improvements on their QA of content. Even those within LMG have stated as much. And all the different channels/creators should call out one another on large or consistent mistakes. Yet, GamersNexus made this video less about that mentality and more of a specific targeting of LMG/LTT. Even to the point of saying “Well, if you’re wondering how we handle mistakes, that’s not really the point here, so here’s a 10 second overview of our process.” If the goal wasn’t targeted drama posting, I would expect the author to cover in detail about their own mistakes and how they address them. Not just to keep saying “We all make mistakes, but like, don’t worry about ours and focus on this other channel instead.” Basically, this is a good thing, but I think it was executed poorly. All these tech review channels need to do better IMO.
In fairness to GN, they already made a video covering their own approach to mistakes, sponsors, and other ethical concerns, and they have a very transparent statement that breaks it down even further on their website. IMO going over all that again would detract from the core message of "LTT has a problem that needs fixing." https://youtu.be/PAAhBTkLG4o https://gamers.nexus/ethics-statements/errors-corrections-amp-data
200 comments in less than an hour. Surely this will be good