Unfortunately I doubt there will be any consequences, even though other people probably would lose their jobs and never be able to work in the field again after that stunt. In the past it was just unreflected consumerism, wrong or inaccurate information etc, but this is terrible.
Do people still watch Linus for actual reviews? The amount of times him and his team get basic facts wrong makes it unwatchable for me, from that standpoint.
At this point it’s just an entertainment production, watching Linus Tech Tips for actual tech review content would be like watching the original UK Top Gear for actual car reviews. Which makes LTTs foray into more data/fact driven stuff all the more puzzling. They had a good thing going with the more entertainment focused angle, hired some people that were funny, but I don’t know what happened to that.
Ever since they started their “labs” they’ve been trying to push themselves as actual reviewers and no longer casual tech reviews.
Which makes little sense to me. They carved out a very nice place on the internet being entertaining instead of half the video being spreadsheets and stats about computer hardware. Seems as if they want their fingers in every pie now.
I was surprised to learn that they have their own streaming service, full service production agency and tech convention, and that their store sells a lot more than just t-shirts.
It seems safe to say that yes, they do want their fingers in every pie.
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The problem with LTT:
- Linus is insanely unfunny, spends half the videos shilling shit merch and makes dumb clickbait video thumbnails with
face.
Other than that it’s great!
- Linus is insanely unfunny, spends half the videos shilling shit merch and makes dumb clickbait video thumbnails with
I started the video shocked that GN would do a video like this at all. I was 100% ready to blame GN for being petty. As I watched and listened, though, he made really good points, and I can’t help but agree. Especially on the points where Linus doubles down on really bad takes instead of doing the right thing, insisting it doesn’t matter (there are loads more examples than just Billet).
The one thing he didn’t say that I wish he had, though, is to remind people that he’s focused on industry journalism, not just hardware itself. This isn’t a hit piece, it’s an information piece, where he holds industry players accountable. Not unlike his journalism on Newegg and Asus. No, it’s not positive, but it’s honest, and it informs and benefits consumers.
Is watching this video considered piracy if there are no ads to skip over?
Bro, the simple fact that Linus failed to recognize that ads are most of the time forced on you, with no paid opt-out alternative, had me cursing at him.
It’s not piracy if I can’t pay to get the product unaltered. PERIOD.
YouTube premium is exactly that though, isn’t it? Not that I agree with either side, just trying to comprehend
YouTube premium is supposed to be this, but it is apparently glitching enough that you get plenty of results for “YouTube premium still showing ads” web searches, and it does nothing against sponsor spots.
I would shut up if Google implemented a sponsor block feature for premium users, and fixed their ads showing to (too many) premium subscribers. Buy they don’t. As it stands, paying for premium to opt-out from ads is as efficient as using
DoNotTrack(which is effectively just added data for fingerprinting) to opt-out from tracking. It makes you part of the problem when you clearly intend to be part of the solution. 🤷♂️Huh. I’ve had Premium for years and never once had it show me ads anyway. Crazy that other people have.
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This comment is where LTT started going down for me.
I listened to an episode of the wan show once and I was out. He showed such disdain for his own audience.
Someone gave like $100 or something insane for a super chat question and he was rude to them.
I’ve had beef with LTT since his series of videos where he tried to use Linux as a daily driver while making absolutely zero effort to understand any of the differences between it and Windows, then proceeded to whine about how it’s not Windows. The part where he broke his system after it explicitly warned him he was about to break it and asked for rather thorough confirmation that he wanted to do so was where I stopped watching him for good.
There’s being ignorant and then there’s being stupid. I fault nobody for being ignorant of how something works when they first encounter it. I do, however, fault them when they demand changes be made without actually understanding the implications of those changes.
Yes! The Linux coverage from LTT is positive and encourageing UNLESS Linus is in the video then he looks for any excuse to raise his voice and yell “this is stupid” or “its going to break on me in 5 minutes”. Emily’s very good coverage of PopOS back in 2019 ish got me into Linux and I have not looked back. Its disappointing to see how with many things (not just Linux) how Linus will change the direction of a video to be more entertainmenting/clickbaity at the cost of good information and quality.
I think what becomes clear when watching a lot of videos is that Linus is more of a tech fanboy that is good at all the high level stuff and can sell it in an entertaining way. He is not however someone who is super into the weeds of a specific technology, tool or system beyond applying his „I’ve worked with technology before“ knowledge.
They have other folks on the show for that.
It that being said. I wouldn’t fault him for his experience with PopOS!. That was totally on the OS and not his fault.
PopOs fucked up a bit leaving that iso live for so long with the steam cache issue, but Linus has to take responsibility here to. It was not “totally on the OS” there where many off ramps that where missed.
For example:
- On the pop shop GUI if he first installed the system updates that would have run a background apt update avoiding the issue. There was a red bubble indicator you can see in the video that should have drawn his attention if he was not in a rush.
- On the pop shop steam page there was a list box that would have allowed him to install the flatpak version of steam, its not like it was hidden or anything it was right next to the install button and its was in fact bigger than the install button.
- Most people googling the terminal way of installing apps in linux would have also run apt update but he either skipped this bit or just ran the first thing he saw on google… He probably would have also typed in “rm -rf /*” if google told him to without a second thought.
- He could have also just read what the OS was trying to tell him, pause, have a think and maybe ask some one like emily? But no he was in a rush so no time for that.
He got into this issue mainly because he was rushing, it was more entertaining and created drama.
Totally agree on the first part though, he is a total tech fan boy.
He is constantly taking his surface level knowledge of item X and extrapolateing it out to create new assumptions but he saying it with enough confidence that it sounds like a fact.
The issue with the water block is massive to me. Testing a prototype product on a GPU that it wasn’t made for, giving it a negative review, doubling down on that negative review when called out, promising to return the prototype to Billet Labs, then SELLING the prototype to the public at their LTX expo. As Steve points out, if a competitor gets their hands on that prototype, it could put Billet Labs out of business. This is wild, and LMG should absolutely be called out like this.
There should be actual, legitimate, law enforcement involvement… Cause its literally theft at best, corporate espionage at worst.
So is it just me or did anyone else notice how the tone of LTT videos changed after Linus stepped down from CEO? Everything seems to be on rails with 'uncanny valley’s levels of scripting.
I get it, production quality and writing getting ‘better’ but it feels like it’s being forced whereas before things were more ad-lib. You can see pretty clearly the difference in tone between the podcast and their videos… Not sure how to reconcile the two of if there really is a need… But it has been bothering me lately. They went through a similar stage a few years ago where their style really bothered me, and then it got better… so maybe it’s more the writing/direction than anything else which can change depending on who is working on a particular video.
Edit: I just got through this video and, yeah… A lot of their reporting errors seem concerning, if anything not because there are particular errors here and there but because conclusions are being drawn from errors. The frequency is pretty astounding too… Would highly recommend people watch this one, as ethical and impartial reporting is a dying art. Gamers Nexus definitely tries (although nobody is perfect, and sometimes their anal attention to detail can be frustrating) with Steve seemingly having his heart in the right place when it comes to providing information that consumers can utilize in good conscience when making decisions. I have my issues with some of Steve’s reporting at times, but I seldom question the validity of the content, whereas now LTT kinda looks like a crap shoot. No more reliable than the clickbait thumbnails you see on every other channel, LTT notwithstanding.
If you care about accuracy and reporting, you won’t be using video as your medium. You use video because you can monetize via “views,” if you are trying to monetize, you don’t really care about accuracy in your reporting.
