• jamon@lemmy.ml
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    2 years ago

    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.

    • noobnarski@feddit.de
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      2 years ago

      Yeah, he didnt do a video to roast LTT and he also didnt insult him.

      He just stated what he sees as going wrong at LTT and how it could be fixed.

      I stopped watching LTT a long time ago because of similar reasons, it was just so frustrating to see them start a project, barely finish it, release the video and the not finish it.

      Other times they made a big mistake in the middle and continued with the video “because we dont have time to fix it”.

      I prefer Youtubers that may have months between videos, but when a new one is out, I nkow its going to be a good one.

      And if they do a project, when it has an issue, they either continue the video until it is fixed, or they read it in the comments and someday we will get a follow up.

    • agent_flounder@lemmy.one
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      2 years ago

      I got the sense that he didn’t really want to have to do a video like this. He kind of said as much a couple of times. And in one section he mentioned he has kind of tip-toed around directly calling out LTT on specific screwups for some time. Like posting his results that contradicted theirs with the hope that people would notice but without directly going “looks at LTT’s bogus numbers wtf”

      I kind of felt like he got to a point where he couldn’t in good conscience ignore it any longer because the pile of fuckups had gotten too big and too egregious with this billet labs fiasco.

      I’m glad he did the vid because, yeah, he has done a good job of holding others accountable as you said, and this is exactly the same ethos. It’s tough because I imagine you don’t want to be seen as just doing hit pieces against the competition. There’s an inherent conflict of interest at play. But given sufficiently good evidence and enough of it, I think that puts those concerns almost entirely to rest.

      The kind of person to be doing reviews is someone who values the truth – accurate results and sound conclusions – over money, ego, fame and popularity, etc. Someone with a great deal of curiosity, skepticism, mental flexibility, and humility. Sounds like that is the near polar opposite of Linus.

      I find it hard to believe, sometimes, that fully grown adults exist who cannot admit their mistakes which just reminds me of how damn lucky I am to work where I do, with a culture that encourages fessing up and fixing rather than covering up and blaming. Where the overwhelming majority of people I have ever worked with is about doing the right thing with an eye primarily on the goal rather than their own ego and ambition.

  • BelieveRevolt [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    2 years ago

    The problem with LTT:

    • Linus is insanely unfunny, spends half the videos shilling shit merch and makes dumb clickbait video thumbnails with soypoint-2 face.

    Other than that it’s great!

  • aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    2 years ago

    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.

    • Sackbut@lemmy.ml
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      2 years ago

      Reviews are probably the only thing that I consistently watch. I tend to agree with others here that a lot of the other videos recently haven’t been catching my interest. That or it’s just a behind the scenes of Linus’ home project.

    • Saneless@sh.itjust.works
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      2 years ago

      I never have. General industry commentary, I have a few times, but when I want actual facts and what feels like a thorough dive, I’ve always done HUB and GN along with text reviews (which I prefer) from places like Tom’s Hardware

      Linus is tabloid-style to me and it’s junk food at best

      Edit : Linux changed to Linus. Though Linux is some tasty junk food

      • Dubious_Fart@lemmy.mlOP
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        2 years ago

        Linux is tabloid-style to me and it’s junk food at best

        Safe to assume you meant Linus?

          • Dubious_Fart@lemmy.mlOP
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            2 years ago

            dont you love it?

            How autocorrect just decides to go back and change a word from the last paragraph with no warning and suddenly your concise argument looks like you do not have the human standard amount of neurons

            • Saneless@sh.itjust.works
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              2 years ago

              Yet a few replies after that one I had to edit my sentence because it has no problems leaving a word spelled as “woth”

              There’s literally nothing else it can be except for with

    • Altima NEO@lemmy.zip
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      2 years ago

      Ever since they started their “labs” they’ve been trying to push themselves as actual reviewers and no longer casual tech reviews.

    • trimmerfrost@lemm.ee
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      2 years ago

      A tech creator that big can never be trusted. I take his opinions with a grain of salt no matter how flashy his production is

  • Swiggles@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 years ago

    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.

  • Vengefu1 Tuna@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    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.

    • Dubious_Fart@lemmy.mlOP
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      2 years ago

      There should be actual, legitimate, law enforcement involvement… Cause its literally theft at best, corporate espionage at worst.

      • anticommon@sh.itjust.works
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        2 years ago

        A $100million dollar company should be able to reclaim that property even if it means paying through the nose to get it back to the rightful owner. Losing a mass production GPU is one thing, that can be fixed with a check. A one of a kind prototype though? And who would make the decision to give something like that away, especially without consent? Things like that should come with a letter of endorsement of the charity sale, or at least have a (year plus) pause before just giving it away.

    • 4am@lemm.ee
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      2 years ago

      Until I saw that I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Even knowingly fudging numbers, while bad, is a temptation it’s easy to see someone trying to keep up with the content rat race falling into.

      The corporate espionage on the other hand is fucking gross. Unless Billet Labs provides a statement that fully absolves LTT of any wrongdoing and states they OK’d the auction, I’m prepared to not engage with LMG at all anymore. Which sucks because I kinda like their water bottle.

      I know we’ve only heard one side of the story so far, so I’ll reserve judgement. If it turns out as bad as it sounds though, they can get Anker’d

        • 4am@lemm.ee
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          2 years ago

          Yeah I’ve since caught up on the responses, and as far as “fudging the numbers” that was with regards to their errors in other testing; the Billet Labs situation is just flat-out shitty.

          • AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world
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            2 years ago

            None of that was knowingly though, it was accidental and the concern is just the frequency and inadequate response.

      • pachrist@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        I really hated him talking about wanting to review it as a product (which he thought nobody would buy). It’s a prototype. It’s specifically not a product yet. That’s the whole point of a prototype. It’s a concept and idea working towards a launch. For as often as they have videos with preproduction, engineering sample products, he absolutely knows the difference.

  • zipzoopaboop@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Anyone else stop watching ltt already just because of boring topics, if you can even figure out what the topic is with their hyper clickbait titles?

    • BattleBeetle@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      Stopped since 2017 when they started using dumb thumbnails and titles, I knew it was just going to be another clickbait channel and I was right. This channel started my hobby since 2011, I even made LTT forum account on day 1. But I found GN since, so that’s nice.

    • Schwab002@lemm.ee
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      2 years ago

      Yeah LMG is just a content farm at this point and they have maxed out their clickbaity titles with Linus making weird faces. It’s a shame.

      • deFrisselle@lemmy.sdf.org
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        2 years ago

        Yup, max out the potential for a channel so start another one and so on It’s quite the furious wheel they have spinning

    • viking@infosec.pub
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      2 years ago

      I use DeArrow basically exclusively for LTT.

      For those who don’t know it, that’s a crowd-sourced youtube title replacement script, intended to purge the platform from clickbait. Made by the same devs behind the SponsorBlock addon.

      https://dearrow.ajay.app/

      • nudny ekscentryk@szmer.info
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        2 years ago

        I tried it but it slows down loading YouTube in Firefox too much ale it’s not as kept up as I would like it to. Out of my subscriptions only LTT and Tom Scott videos are ever maintained in there.

        • viking@infosec.pub
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          2 years ago

          Yeah those are the 2 where I see it most as well. And Tom Scott isn’t even that clickbaity.

    • alertsleeper@lemm.ee
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      2 years ago

      I used to watch several videos a week, but now I find them outlandish and clickbaity, so I basically just watch LMG Clips.

      With this latest piece of info I don’t think I trust them anymore

    • RickyRigatoni@lemmy.ml
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      2 years ago

      I stopped watching when they got a Tuxedo laptop to review it, and instead of actually reviewing it the entire video was a shitpost because the laptops can have the keyboard font customized and the dumbass set it to wingdings.

    • doggle@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      I used to watch the wan show, but stopped because Linus was frankly becoming pretty unrelatable. It’s sad to see them lose the plot like this, but I’m not surprised. I think Lmg has been growing far faster than they could keep ahead of, and the train is off the rails now…

      • tburkhol@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        I feel like growth is poison for content companies, especially niche content. I get where a million-view video and the associated cash is great reward. I get that people can consume content so much faster than it’s created that a known creator’s revenue is limited only by the rate they produce. Gotta be tempting to squeeze just a little more, cover a less interesting topic, or skip a difficult detail to get that extra bit of revenue. It’s the fundamental process of enshittification, and it works on everything from LTT to EA to walmart.

        Expecting people to give up money, rewards and fame - to stay a small dedicated provider with ideological purity - when there are crowds outside the door begging for just a little compromise, just this one time, is a big ask. But it’s also why there’s so much churn in media. Young turk comes in with great content, gets an audience, gives in to enshittification, and gets replaced by the next young turk.

    • Ace@feddit.uk
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      2 years ago

      I liked the LTT Translator twitter account before it got sold off / hacked / whatever. It was fun trying to guess what the fuck their stupid title even meant. At this point why even bother with a title, might as well just call each video “click me pls”

  • leyland1989@lemmy.ca
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    2 years ago

    LTT has lived long enough and grown large enough to see themselves being the villain. I suppose fame and wealth can corrupt a person easily, the arrogance in the response from Linus is disappointing.

    LTT hasn’t been a serious or informative tech channel for years, you don’t watch their video for information but for entertainment. They try to right the course by creating the Lab team but miss the point when they don’t change their mindset.

    It’s like Top Gear vs Fifth Gear back in the days. You don’t buy a new car base on the reviews on Top Gear, likewise if I want useful consumer advice, LTT is the last place I look.

  • variouslegumes@reddthat.com
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    2 years ago

    Anyone who thinks a person reviewing a product is on their side is a mark. The issues with LTT videos is so obvious in hindsight that it’s hilarious that the fans haven’t or refused to notice. I honestly thought being shitty and approachable was their schtick? The people who are incredibly upset are likely to stan Gamers Nexus until they eventually get called out by another tech outlet for similar shit. The drama is fun though.

  • Auzy@beehaw.org
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    2 years ago

    Geez… Watching this now. I’ve been skeptical of LTT for a while and noticed the focus had changed a bit when they launched Short Circuit and such. But I don’t think I could watch LTT without cringing anymore.

  • sverit@feddit.de
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    2 years ago

    Here is his response: https://linustechtips.com/topic/1526180-gamers-nexus-alleges-lmg-has-insufficient-ethics-and-integrity/page/16/?__cf_chl_rt_tk=riEm65zw7EleA5UJEi3eN8ZaHnVo6Smg27vxUlGW5uk-1692115262-0-gaNycGzNDGU#comment-16078641

    My take on it:

    We know that we’re not perfect. We wear our imperfection on our sleeves in the interest of ensuring that we stay accountable to you. But it’s sad and unfortunate when this transparency gets warped into a bad thing.

    Yeah, well, that’s one of the main issues addressed in this video: You are not transparent about this, when you swap out videos without notice or bury corrections in a non-pinned comment.

    Listing the wrong amount of cache on a table for a CPU review is sloppy, but given that our conclusions are drawn based on our testing, not the spec sheet, it doesn’t materially change the recommendation.

    If the listing is wrong, who guarantees the lab tests on which the conclusion is based on are not wrong?

    The thoroughness that we managed on our last handful of GPU videos is getting really incredible given the limited time we have for these embargoes.

    Take the time it needs to produce correct reviews then. Who wants fast but false results?

  • gamer@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    Damn this is eye opening for me. LTT was always my most trusted source for tech reviews. I noticed that they’d make little mistakes every once in a while, but didn’t realize it was part of a larger problem. I actually made a Ryzen 9 7900 buying decision recently because of this video which made it seem like the best value (especially compared to their very confusing 7950x3d review). After watching this GN video though, I feel stupid for not even thinking to check other channels before making a buying decision.

    (Although honestly this is a major upgrade over my previous hardware, so even if it wasn’t the best possible option, it’s still a net positive for me.)

    I really hope LTT takes this criticism seriously. It’s always gratifying to see misbehavior have consequences on the internet, but these independent reviewers are pretty much the only people on our side as consumers. I’d rather see a course correction than a crash, especially since LMG in particular has a uniquely powerful position and can have real impacts on manufacturers that benefit consumers.