- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
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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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
But that’s how the typical user behaves. I love Linux and what you can do with it, but it’s so tone deaf to think oridanry people are going to behave any diffeent than Linus did. People just don’t have the time to take that effort you expect of yourself, only enthusiast have this kind of time. Other people are enthusiastic about other things. We need to all respect this.
Ugh, it’s so frustrating. Linux will continue to be irrelevant to consumers as long as this attitude of “just put in the effort to understand” persists.
Yeah, this irked me too. I get trying to be the average person (and Pop! was also bugged at the time), but I find it really hard to believe that the average person would approach linux and completely ignore serious warning messages.
I work in IT. Average people tend to fall into one of two categories when presented with big scary warning messages.
Category 1: They freak out and immediately ask for help, and tend to be very skeptical of anything you tell them to do until the message goes away.
Category 2: They ignore the message and YOLO it like Linus did, then call for help hours or days later when something inevitably breaks.
It’s rare for either group of people to read an comprehend the message in it’s entirety.expired
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?
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.
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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.
It should be sued the hell out of it for that.
I don’t know if Billet has the appetite to sue. It seems like Billet and LMG came to an agreement
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Not too mention totally ignoring the instructions billet labs provided
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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.
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.
The only consequence so far is a nearly 4k drop on FP subscribers. Roughly $20k/m loss.
That’s not saying much because they still have 40k subscribers.
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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.
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
Linux is tabloid-style to me and it’s junk food at best
Safe to assume you meant Linus?
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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
Guess this is why GN and a few others were not at LTX
Billet Labs has a good case to sue LMG
Linus’s response.
I honestly fully stand by GN in this and while I think LTT should have had the opportunity to respond to the allegations before the video went live, since this is the proper Journalistic thing to do, it should be considered that ltt has a huge audience and influence in the tech sphere so I can only assume GN didn’t want them to get ahead of the curve? It’s sad if it has come to this.
I also don’t know how exactly ltt could respond to the observations GN made since it’s a piece about what happened in videos they posted. They can’t really deny what happened. All they could do is lower their head and promise to do better.
Ugh, Hes trying so hard to double down on his comments, while giving plausible deniability to his doubling down, especially with the Billet block.
And its so fucking stupid to complain that the billet waterblock is expensive and stupid, considering ALL the stupid, expensive, wasteful bullshit hes done on his channel… Its double stupid that hes still using his basis on using the wrong card that didnt fit it as his argument.
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.
Will Linus watch this one or will he just read the comments?
He already did, you can find it here:
I would quote it, but it is too long to be a reasonable comment.
Wow you’re right that is extremely long. Tldr seems to be he’s saying he didn’t do anything wrong and he’s disappointed Steve didn’t just send him a quick text about it. I feel like it would have been better for Linus to own the mistake at this stage and get the prototype thingy back as it’s not like he’s short on cash or anything. I’d say he comes off like a bit of a jerk. We’ll see how this one shakes out.
He said he made those mistakes, he’s sorry, he’ll try not to do it again, but they’re not a big deal.
Several step in the narcissist prayer in his response.
That didn’t happen.
And if it did, it wasn’t that bad.
And if it was, that’s not a big deal.
And if it is, that’s not my fault.
And if it was, I didn’t mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.
I feel like whatever point Steve is trying to make here could have been a community post or even a short rather than what looks like a 45 minute hit piece on his competitor.
This appears (from the thumbnail and first few minutes of content) to be drama for the sake of drama. If anyone can summarise to the contrary, please do.
He is showing in video statements and fails done by LTT. There is nothing to water down to people like you. It’s either full data or you will misrepresent what was stated
Oh, he’ll misrepresent what the video was regardless.
His parasocial relationship to Linus must not be threatened by facts and data.
rookie mistake
The most noticeable thing for me are the constant annotations. Sometimes there are so many that I’m not sure why a whole video is up if it’s half assed and they want to salvage it through bandaids.
Bot holy shit they are become sloppy and borderline corrupt. Thanks to GN for calling them out.
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