At least, some of the recent controversies.
So I just watched the entire team apologize for Linus and then Linus proceeded to attempt to gaslight everyone watching.
Fuck this guy.
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?
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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.
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. removed about that kind of small detail is pointless when there are plenty of more serious things to talk about.
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?
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Monetizing an apology video of all things says it all.
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.
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.
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.
@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?
I am carefully optimistic about this. They addressed the problems and seem to take some time to fix them. I hope they will focus on quality over quantity as they promised.
After all the shit Madison revealed, you’re going to give these creeps a chance?
The PC world truly is a toxic cesspool if you can sand behind these assholes a second longer.
It’s damage control.
Of course it is. But admitting errors and avoiding to make them again is a pretty effective form of damage control, and it is the kind we should want from any company.
The problem is the founder is still a thin-skinned whiny jerk that made it about ‘his poor feelings’ and doubled down.
When everyone else in a video is doing the right thing, and the founder is not, you can bet there’s a huge toxic culture that a dedicated, but peripheral group is trying to work around - and Madison’s tweets show that there’s a hell of a lot more toxicity than just their ethical and editorial failings.
The problem is the founder is still a thin-skinned whiny jerk that made it about ‘his poor feelings’ and doubled down.
That’s not at all what happened, and I think you’re seriously lacking empathy here. He explained he reacted emotionally, and he’s still emotional. This is in no small part his baby. He made the decision to step down before this ever happened because he wanted someone that could do it better at the helm, he realized he had been promoted past his competency, that’s not nothing.
People just love drama…
Wow, well, that’s one way to attempt to rewrite history. Either you are uninformed, misinformed, or delusional. I suggest you read some of the LTT related topics on the front page.
Try just watching the video. Linus is to my eye being extremely genuine.
I don’t get the absurd crusade to crucify someone one barely knows for a situation one barely understands in the name of what… Some self indulgent moral superiority?
It happens every time. “Big publicly recognized figure/company/whatever makes a mistake” and everyone wants their life ruined, speculates to infinity and beyond, and writes off their humanity, etc. And it’s happening over increasingly trivial things.
It’s an internet mob out on a witch hunt and it’s disgusting. This dude and his wife built a company from nothing that has been good to many many people from everything I’ve taken in over the years. They didn’t kill anyone, they screwed up some data in a YouTube video, an employee sold something they shouldn’t have (which Linus then tried to rectify), and some allegations have been made without proof by one former employee with no information from the LTT side (and no proof Linus or his team knew anything about the situation or its severity). Meanwhile, y’all are out here screaming for the demise of the whole damn thing, and to screw any second chances. It’s a completely disproportionate and unjustified response.
I absolutely hate to see people treat other people in this way.
There is tons of info in this thread about what happened. None of that was a mistake.
Apparently you are just misinformed and seem to have no will to take in the relevant information, which renders your opinion on the matter meaningless.
Oh my god i am so tired of seeing posts about this, PLEASE can we give it a rest? i want to leave this trend hounding shit on reddit
It’s been like 3 days dude, calm down.
Browse link aggregator website. Complain about links being aggregated
Just recently a creator I watch talked about how YouTubers sometimes create drama between each other to gain more relevance. Then they go for drinks together. Is this the case here? No way to realistically know for sure.
Probably not from Gamers Nexus’ side of things. Their video is very professional, and focuses on the damage done to other companies featured on the channel, and challenges LTT and LMG to be more professional. They also said in their followup that they won’t be making any more videos on the topic, their goal was to raise awareness, and now it’s LTT’s responsibility to decide what to change, if anything. Is LTT playing it up as drama? Maybe, but I think it’s more likely that they want it treated as drama rather than legitimate criticism so that they can ignore it and move on, rather than to increase attention/ relevance.
I don’t think Gamers Nexus would do something like that, they have a good history of calling out companies for bullshit they try and pull. doing that would damage their reputation.
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Gamer’s Nexus recently released a video detailing how LMG’s pace-over-all-else attitude is in direct conflict with their “we’re going to be a serious data company” plans for LTT Labs. What has people the most upset, however, is the story around Billet Labs. LTT did a terrible, rushed, unprofessional job at reviewing a custom prototype from a small startup–they used the wrong hardware (after losing the GPU the company sent them to test with), didn’t care enough to re-test properly, and then auctioned off that hardware instead of returning it to the owners.
Linus then responded (only in a space he controlled, of course) and said “we’re going to do better, trust me bro” and made everything 10x worse. GN was essentially forced to respond to that because Linus blatantly lied to cover up the timeline on the Billet Labs fuckup.
Oh, and LTT also released a video in the middle of this that had a ton of testing problems, just like the original video outlined.
Now we’re here, where the new CEO, Linus’s wife (and co-owner, to be clear) and the rest of the LMG leadership have to pick up the pieces to try and salvage their reputation.
Don’t forget about Madisons accusations
Sorry, but I didn’t see anything she posted that really has merit in this discussion. It’s from one junior, inexperienced ex-employee, and most of what she said is just normally “unhappy employee” stuff.
Anything of value that she mentioned is already covered by other sources, most notably the video GN showed with LMG employees and Linus himself saying their pace is too fast.
Edit: I took the time today to properly read her entire thread and I changed my mind. There’s a lot here that is very concerning and deserving of investigation.
I’ve pointed out in another comment that most of what she says are indicators of an incredibly toxic working environment, but I’d have to echo the sentiment that a good chunk of it is disgruntled, relatively inexperienced, employee grumbling.
Props on her for speaking up, though. Nothing changes if the status quo is toxicity and silence.
Really? You think constant physical/verbal abuse has less merit than some shitty hit job by another YouTuber just looking for clicks because YouTube rewards drama with its algorithms.
In my world people come before things/reviews.
I always assumed this guy was a d-bag.
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Relax. So they made some mistakes. Cringe mistakes that could easily be avoidable (a lot like much of my life has been). Either they do better in the future or they die. People are getting so upset and enraged it looks like this is something that matters. They are still fun, I like them. Im rooting for them to improve!
