At least, some of the recent controversies.
Big shout out to them leaving the links to LTT merch in the description. Venal fucks.
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They definitely have a default description set. Bitching about that kind of small detail is pointless when there are plenty of more serious things to talk about.
I mean, it’s another example of the lack of attention to detail and rushing, but yeah.
Yeah, people keep making excuses for them.
“There isn’t enough time, they have to eat and drink and sleep”
Then delay the video until it’s done. That’s part of the core issues that kicked this whole episode off. Them rushing out videos without care.
Not trying to make excuses for them, I just think that picking on a low hanging fruit like the description which is more or less exactly the same for every video, feels a bit cheap to me. There are plenty of examples of them being in the wrong with far worse impact than that.
On YouTube, creators don’t earn anything unless a new video is released frequently. They have to sustain a huge corporation based on that. I think that it’s a bad decision to go for that income structure in the first place, but there they are.
They don’t “have” to do anything. LMG chose to hire dozens and then hundreds of people in an effort to grow as fast as possible. Linus could have prioritized accuracy or quality over quantity, but that would have made less money, so he didn’t.
My point is that you should criticize the reason, not the consequence.
They chose to financially put themselves in a situation where they are forced to release content at that frequency because they chose to expand operations and drastically increase expenses compared to other channels. It’s their decisions that created the work cycle that is needed in pursuit of exponential growth over a more financially sustainable model that affords the luxury for a less hectic release schedule.
It’s getting old seeing people keep making they have to do it this way when it is the situation they created for themselves.
It’s possible to release videos frequently while not rushing the production for each video. They’ll just need more editors and writers to spread the load. e.g. instead of 3 teams working on 3 videos in parallel and rushing them to finish in 3 days, they can have 6 teams working on 6 videos in 6 days to achieve similar output (releasing 1 video per day) without overworking the team while keeping the attention of detail high. GN even mentioned it in their video. LTT has over 100 full time employees already, so they definitely have the resource to scale up their production team.
How about the multiple merch plugs in the video itself or that the video was monetized, in direct contrast to the original video from GN not being monetized?
Perhaps, but I see it as indicative of the problem in general. A slapdash attitude where they don’t pause for a second to consider what they’re actually doing, which, you’d think they might try and do under a 20 minute video where they grovel and scrape and beg forgiveness.
It’s not a small detail and it’s not pointless to point it out.
When you messed up so big, you wanna make sure your “we got this, folks” video is impeccable.
100% this. Whoever is in charge of uploads is almost definitely using a macro to auto-fill every description. If you look, the description credits the intro/outro music which weren’t even used in this video at all.
Most YT channels do this, very few big channels actually put anything besides their own links in descriptions.
The part witch Nick plugging LTT store was cringe
EDIT: did not know about the allegations from the former employee and it just saddens me. I was only aware of the cooling block and it’s auctioning when I wrote this.
This thread you made is cringe. Grow tf up and try to have some understanding for once in a while.
Big corporations will always pull fake apologies and complain that consumers are beligerent little hotheads who’s opinion doesn’t matter in the long run. You’re proving their point right now.
But if say LTT actually does pull out of this amicably and their words are followed by prompt action that remedies the situation, we can in turn look at Intel, AMD, Nvidia and the likes and say “see? That’s how it’s done”.
As tech jesus himself said in his expose video is that we all make mistakes.
Do not attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity, and the way LMG has been working has been stupid.
Don’t give the bastards an inch, I understand. But let us be clear about who the bastards are and I still don’t think LMG has gone over to the side of evil.
Now they’re stepping back, taking the time to make amens (I hope they really give that company they shafted a much needed boost for instance, as a bare minimum) and we should be here for that.
If you’re just here to whine, fine. But don’t think you’re adding to the conversation or saying anything meaningful, because you are in fact just trolling.
Again, try and have some understanding. It’s very important for us to do that, because secterianism and feudes will in the end hurt the community, and also the consumer, because we have to stay on top of this.
Ooohhh fanboys doing (presumably) unpaid PR work in the comments!
Does this mean lemmy has “made it”?
Hey folks, looks like we found Linus’s Kbin account!
So I just watched the entire team apologize for Linus and then Linus proceeded to attempt to gaslight everyone watching.
Fuck this guy.
Yeah, I feel now it is out that he is a narcissist and it just feels so obvious. He is gaslighting everyone and people try to clean up after him, that’s just symptomatic. He won’t change, he will maybe get managed better by the people around him to reduce the damage. But there isn’t anything else to hope for.
Monetizing an apology video of all things says it all.
From the majority of the team, this is a pretty good and textbook PR mea culpa. “Here’s how we screwed up, here’s how we’re fixing it.”
The pushing the merch was tone-deaf and the defensive whining from Linus was NOT on-point, though. I appreciate it ended with “how I’m going to fix it,” but he should keep the defensive shit to himself.
It would be better if the CEO could learn to read a prompter so it looks like he’s not reading one.
This is pretty annoying to watch with his eyes looking above the camera and going left and right constantly.
Still better than the labs guy who just sounded like a robot
To be fair to them, they aren’t hosts. Its glaringly obvious they are not in-front-of-camera people. It does feel like its done on purpose to appeal emotionally.
Glad to see this video, even with some of the drawbacks mentioned in the comments. I think everyone needs a path to redemption and LMG should get a chance. I think that this “reflection” should be more regular. LMG is no longer a small company and like it or not, they need to regularly be ahead of these situations. I really hope that they will take a week ever month or two to review any new screw ups and remedy them. Process will not solve everything, ensuring a company culture that has key values will triump process. It takes time however. I wish them the best.
I run a small company, at what size do I need to start worrying about treating people respectfully? My belief is companies shouldn’t get a pass, no matter the size. Why are we ok with it happening at all at this point? It’s not 1960 anymore.
I was referring to what was stated in the video. The issues with poor benchmarking and the billetlabs issue (email sent to the wrong recipient). I am not sure why you think any of it implied that it is ok to treat people without respect if the organisation is below a certain size. I was referring to ensuring that a company culture of being humble, responsible and accountable via a monthly or bi monthly review. It could have potentially caught the issue with billetlabs and even several issues with the benchmarking. This is perhaps easier done in a small company but needs to be nurtured and reinforced in a bigger one. I hope my position is more clear.
People are sharks for argument on forums like this.
@Chozo The end of the video:
But Dbrand did offer
… is basically advertisement for the brand, packed into “a joke”. Why would they mention it otherwise?
And the video itself is monetized.
Not anymore according to the update in the pinned comment
After the community backlash… At least they’re listening ig?
They have a meme relationship with dbrand
You ever heard of this thing called jokes?
@LufyCZ Did you even read what I wrote?
I did, and disagree with you completely. You don’t have to be so pesimistic about life and look for the worst things in it. They wanted to lighten a mood a bit, maybe it didn’t land well for you but It don’t see any ill intentions behind it.
Btw, how would dbrand know they’re making this video? I doubt LMG reached out to them and told them, wouldn’t make any sense.
I agree that it’s good they’re acknowledging the problems but that video felt like an interrogation. So corporate and weird.
In fairness, they would have been absolutely stupid to have not done a 100% prewritten, teleprompted PR riddled pre-written response given the situation. Linus sitting down in front of a camera and just letting his mind do Linus things isn’t gonna help anyone lol.
You mean like he did on the forums about three hours after the GN video dropped?
Bingo!
It definitely helped everyone to see their true color…
Have a link by any chance, or has it been deleted?
Seconding this request.
Possibly screenshots to avoid paying them a visit, but, eh, a link would do, too.
Thanks
How many takes do you think each of them needed before they all managed to look at the camera while talking, read the script appropriately, and move their head and hands enthusiastically?
How many times do you reckon the team needed to ask linus before he decided to take the whole thing seriously.
Nevermind
So likely every scripted apology video basically
Guess, I am out of the loop.
After Linus blasted people using ad-blockers (fucking hypocrite), I uh, just blocked his channel.
When did he do that?
About a year ago.
The uh, irony… is this:
Believe it or not, I think he has a point and isn’t at all a hypocrite. He’d show you how to pirate and torrent stuff (and has before) while also telling you he doesn’t recommend stealing. What he was saying is that the content isn’t meant to be free. The ads pay for the content. So not watching ads means the producer doesn’t get paid. Its a soft form of piracy but he wasn’t telling you what to do about that. He just said “Be aware you’re not giving people anything for their content”. I don’t know why thats controversial, he’s not even suggesting its illegal or even immoral. I never understood the arguments here but I also dont visit twitter
Piracy I associate as an illegal act that carries penalties of fines and imprisonment. Like real piracy…
As blocking is legal and something even the FBI recommends. This is more a website shortcoming than an act of piracy. Which if blocking ads is piracy then at that point the word just becomes diluted, and at that point who even cares.
Which if blocking ads is piracy then at that point the word just becomes diluted, and at that point who even cares.
Isn’t “taking something without paying” what piracy is? With YouTube, the “payment” is your time spent watching an ad. If you bypass that “payment”, are you not effectively pirating the content?
It doesn’t seem that diluted to me. I actually agree with Linus’s take that adblocking is piracy. It’s just a much more socially and legally-acceptable form of piracy.
If anything, I feel like adblocking on YouTube does even more direct damage to content creators than pirating blockbuster movies does to movie studios, honestly. If ten thousand people pirate a new Marvel movie, Disney’s not going to hurt too bad from that. But if ten thousand people adblock a YouTuber, that can significantly hurt their income by damaging their ad impression ranking. Advertisers on YouTube set their rates based on the engagement they get from a channel, and drops in engagement will typically result in drops in CPM.
It’s the reason I pay for YouTube Premium, myself. I use YouTube pretty much all day long, and I want the creators whose content I spend my day watching to get paid for their work. And if not for YTP, I would 100% be adblocking YouTube, otherwise.
If I tune into an NFL game using an OTA antenna, then turn off my TV during commercials and turn it back on for the game, would that be piracy?
There is no back channel to measure that so the impact to the content producer is way less direct.
That’s a whole lot of words for what in the end is not piracy with no laws being broken. There’s a difference between a moral argument and law breaking.
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It’s not illegal to look away from a billboard or to close my eyes during a trailer at the movies, which seems more akin to using an adblocker in a browser.
“Not acknowledging” and “directly interfering with” something are two different things.
No, taking something without paying is theft. Piracy has many definitions, but none of them that simple.
-Robbery or other serious acts of violence committed at sea.
-The hijacking of an airplane.
-Copyright or patent infringement.
-The illegal interception or use of radio or television signals.
-An instance of piracy.
-In geology, that process whereby, because of a higher natural gradient, and therefore more efficient eroding power, one stream cuts back a divide and taps off the head-waters or a tributary of another stream. The captured stream usually turns a sharp angle into its new course and leaves a wind-gap where it formerly flowed. Also called stream-piracy.
-Robbery upon the sea; robbery by pirates; the practice of robbing on the high seas.
-Literary theft; any unauthorized appropriation of the mental or artistic conceptions or productions of another; specifically, an infringement of the law of copyright.
Possibly a hot take, but as I understand it, content creators of his size should be viewed that the viewer is the product, content creator is the seller, and the sponsor/advertiser is the buyer. It’s the content creators job to sell our eye balls and brain space. However, just as a fish resists being captured by a fisher, I resist being sold. Adblocking is my resistance as a product. So producers of said product need to work harder to get enough of their product to be profitable. Should their be a drought, or if my tools are not maintained properly, then is it stealing if my crops die? Did my wheat fields steal from me when they didn’t grow enough for me to be a profitable farmer? I am the product being sold, I don’t “owe” them anything for harvesting me. It’s up to THEM to make my eyes and data worth harvesting to be sold to advertisers.
I see what you mean but I don’t agree. The deal being made here is obvious and you’re signing up to give them data in exchange for watching a video. You’re also signing up to view their ads. You have an option not to be the product at all. You already have the wheat, but you’re giving the middleman less than what was arranged, not just producing less.
And if you view it as okay to not give them what they’re asking for while getting the content anyways, that’s chill. Just recognize that you’re paying less for the content than they’re asking. This is even more enforced by YouTube and news papers who charge for ad free experiences.
If I DuckDuckGo something and a video pops up and I watch it, I made no affirmative assent to giving them any data. Even if I go to YouTube.com, I made no agreement. Only if I make an account do I make any sort of contractual agreement with Google. If they only want to show their videos to those who agree to their policies, that’s their perogative. That they haven’t done so suggests that they know and allow people who haven’t done so to watch anyway.
Purchasing and pirating don’t have contractural agreements. You don’t have to have a ToS to pirate something.
If DuckDuckGo does block the ad in their browser, they’ve done the work for you. And if they do not but instead Google decides to serve it to you without ads in a browser, it’s not piracy to not have ads.
As long as the intended revenue of the content you’re viewing is being blocked, you’re pretty much pirating it. Doesn’t mean it’s wrong, it’s just a definitional thing.
The deal being made here is obvious and you’re signing up to give them data in exchange for watching a video. You’re also signing up to view their ads.
I don’t buy this rhetoric. By your view, then if I don’t watch an ad, then I don’t get the content. Yet on YouTube I get the content inspite of declining to view the ad. Some websites do not let me see the content, unless I see their ads. That’s fine, I just go to a different site or spend my time doing something else. This rhetoric is to help businesses make money, which is fine, but I have no interest in furthering their narrative. If websites block me from using ad block, then it is entirely within their right to deny me access to their content. *
If you are not paying for a good or service, you are the product. That is my claim. The ad is not the price paid, it is the medium someone is using to collect my market value. Were I to walk to a store, and tell them I wanted something in exchange for seeing their billboard on the highway I’d be laughed out the building.
*Yes there are ways around this, but I think that is outside the scope of this discussion on ads.
I want to be clear still, piracy isn’t a problem or wrong necessarily. I’m not pushing a corporate narrative by saying this, I’m more concerned about creators and other sites that use ads for revenue such as newspapers. So if you want to “pay” a site without money, don’t pirate their content. That’s all. That’s similar to what Linus has said.
But I think this is somewhat similar to asking you for a ticket at the door for a movie. If the “ticket” is watching the ad and they’re asking you to buy the ticket (with premium) or get it from ads, bypassing the doorman would mean it’s piracy. Doesn’t even matter if the doorman doesn’t try to stop you. Doesn’t matter if they don’t pull you out of the movie.
You being the product is irrelevant to the piracy thing. But it is relevant to the moral thing
I do not block ads. I however use Privacy Badger to block tracking cookies, which means that I don’t see ads. I will see all ads that are not tracking me, which seems to be none. Is protecting my privacy also piracy?
It is, yes. It’s a separate conversation of if it should be illegal or immoral to keep your privacy this way. But as long as you are violating the intended method of revenue for the content you’re viewing, that’s piracy to me.
I think most people hear piracy and think it’s immoral or illegal, but there are very valid reasons to pirate content such as game and movie preservation.
Yup, illegal does not mean immoral or unethical. It just means some rich or powerful person doesn’t like what you’re doing. There’s a lot of overlap, of course. Many illegal acts are also immoral or unethical. But it’s not a 100% overlapping Venn diagram. Also YT is kind of evil, so it’s piracy against an evil corporation as much as the content creator. The smarter content creators have sponsors and embedded ads and don’t rely on YT for anything.
The implicit contract is to show an ad for a service, but they are actually violating the contract by attaching other things to the ads. They then use the ads to steal information that they then sell without my consent. So, if anything we are discussing honor amongst thieves.
It’s not like you see the ads that have trackers, they get blocked. So it’s still part of the agreement sort of. And you’re also aware that it’s revenue for them. People assume it’s a moral argument, it’s not. You can pirate from absolutely evil people, but it’s still piracy. That’s why I don’t view it as worth arguing over for the most part. I WANT people to realize that it’s piracy but that they’re actually doing something ethical.
Same, I unsubbed back then.
(Thanks Louis Rossmann for existing, BTW).
Recent events only confirmed that my choice was right.
I unsubbed from MKBHD as well a while ago, I’m not at ease with YouTubers becoming corporations (or getting close to).
I loved LMG and watched their videos for years, but if you are going to put out false or exaggerated data knowingly, or auction off a one of a kind prototype, would pass me off but I might tune in from time to time for the entertainment.
But if you are called out on this and instead of trying to do the right thing you double down and even straight up lie to try to make a case where you aren’t the bad guy, then I am done with LMG channels as I can not support a company with this clown.
IMO a good answer and directly adresses my biggest stated problem of “we know stuff goes wrong, but we don’t care about them” (see https://lemmings.world/comment/1218294)
The thing about Madison: if true it’s very concerning, but for now it’s only one person who told about these problems and I don’t know her enough to trust her like that without proof. In contrast: I trust GN and they showed proof
But that doesn’t mean you should ignore these accusations and I would like to see an answer from LMG.
This is MY opinion on this matter. Your opinion may vary!
I think this is the most sane opinion here really; and it’s one I share…
Like, alright, they screwed up; we don’t need to have a riot about it. I’ve followed these guys for a while, they seem genuine, they’re humans, I think they deserve a chance.
It feels like a lot of people who don’t know “how Linus is” or the history of the company getting upset and grabbing their pitch fork a bit too quickly.
Other than the Madison Reeves post I just read, I am completely out of the loop on the LTT controversy. That said, I made it about 1/3 of the way through the video before I had to stop it. I know very little about these guys but that video is infuriating.
Short and sweet summary as called out by Gamers Nexus:
- Testing methodology sux and results are not sanity checked, thereby misleading consumers.
- If errors are caught, they are corrected poorly and acknowledged with asterisks or in description, which does not put enough of a spotlight on it.
- Trashing on a small company (billet labs) that makes dope coolers for performing poorly due to improper testing and not retesting because “I don’t wanna spend 500 bucks”
- Not returning the prototype which was sent to them by billet labs for testing and AUCTIONING IT OFF (allegedly to a potential competitor) at LTX.
Thank you!
You can watch the Gamers Nexus video on the LMG for context. Steve highlights a lot of errors that they’ve made.
Actions speak louder than words…
Their action was to monetize the apology video, which is especially funny after Gamers Nexus explicitely didn’t monetize their video. They advertised their shop and floatplane and teased a new product. Just incredible.
They really cannot help themselves. Money corrupts all.
The fact they’re still hiding their testing methodologies behind floatplane makes me dubious of how effective this “housekeeping” week will be. Not that I plan on watching or interacting with anything LMG related going forward until the allegations brought up by Madison are properly handled anyway, in which then my final decision will be made.
Where can I see these allegations from Madison? I must have missed them.
Edit: I found them, right under this post on my front page lol.
Well that really hurts to read :( Madison was one of my favorites
I know Linus was pushing back REAL hard on getting a fact checker. And it would’ve likely prevented this situation entirely.
Edit: Other than the pushing of merch… Sigh… This is a pretty good PR mea culpa. At least from the rest of the team. I guess I should finish it. Pretty textbook. “We screwed up, here’s how we’re fixing it.”
Edit 2: Nevermind. I got to the part with Linus. FFS.
What do we do now?
Just shut the company down. LMG peaked years ago, and went downhill from there. And even back then it was worst amongst the big tech channels.
Jesus, Michael Dell vibes over here
Lol.
You can just not watch their videos. That’s always been allowed.
You don’t have to be that drastic. Sure, I’m done watching their videos but if they truly want to keep their remaining audience, 1. Linus needs to step down from appearing in any vídeos, 2. Put out a statement to both the community and vendors that they are going to do better and list each change being addressed, and 3. Slow down the video release schedule to ensure proper benchmarks and results can be validated and accurately captured.
