LTT vs Google.
I’ll side with LLT on this, but that doesn’t mean I want to support their channel.
Quick summary, probably missing a lot, but…
- Two-ish years ago they decided to sell an overpriced backpack with no warranty. This was criticized considering everything else in the same price/quality categories would have lifetime warranties. This led to Linus Sebastien going on a rant about how warranties are worthless and people should just trust him and that anyone who wanted a warranty was going to threaten his wife (the CFO and one of the major shareholders) were he to die. LMG eventually walked back and provided a pretty good warranty but this is largely considered the “masks off” moment
- One-ish years ago, during a fan tour one of the engineers in Lab (LMG’s hardware testing warehouse) criticized Hardware Unboxed and Gamers Nexus with some (actually false) nonsense claims about how LMG do their testing and why it makes them better than everyone else. After this blew up, Linus went on his podcast to say he stands by the engineer.
- Needless to say, GN and HUB took that personally and it led to GN doing one of their industry takedown videos (usually reserved for MSI or ASUS) on LMG with lots of documented examples of downright comedic levels of incompetence in how they review hardware and present results that point toward systemic issues that undermine all the orgs who actually take benchmarking and the like seriously. Look up the video, but it is stuff like not taking the plastic off a mouse (and then complaining about how it feels) or listing complete nonsense numbers for RAM that anyone with half a (computer parts) brain would have said “that can’t be right”.
- Also, GN pointed out that one of the most egregious examples was the recent one where LMG were sent a prototype GPU cooler and a GPU to review. LMG proceeded to “lose” the card they were sent and use a random different model for the test and then shit on the product endlessly while insisting it doesn’t matter that they didn’t actually test it because it was a shit product. They then sold the prototype at their convention to an unknown party. All while ghosting the company and ignoring their requests for the prototype back.
- This led to “drama” where Linus, on the LTT Forums, accused Steve (GN) of being biased and a horribly unprofessional reporter for not giving LMG a chance to get ahead of the accusations and insisted they had already addressed all the issues. Which was later revealed to be that they finally replied to the GPU Cooler company literally minutes before Linus posted to gaslight people.
- Also, as part of this, a former employee (Madison) who had left mysteriously spoke out about the sexual harassment and assault she experienced at LMG. This was consistent with vagueposting by other female former staff when referencing their time at LMG.
- The harassment was corroborated by other former staff (one has since recanted after he couldn’t find a new job in the kind of blog post that would make even John Xina himself raise an eyebrow) and audio of her manager (James Streib) making stripper jokes to the entire company during the company mandated sexual harassment seminar THE DAY AFTER MADISON QUIT BECAUSE OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT re-surfaced. Streib is still the face of one of the LMG channels.
- This ALSO reminded people of when, OG of Maker Youtube and 3d Printing, Naomi Wu spoke about how Linus had insisted she come to his hotel room at like 3 am if she wanted to do a collaboration and that it made her feel uncomfortable. Allegedly this was all a big misunderstanding and Linus only accidentally removed his wife from the email chain, but Naomi is used to that shit and had much bigger stuff (like the CCP…) to deal with when this was resurfacing.
And just general douche-baggery.
But mostly? It just means to take anything LMG does with a massive grain of salt. They have repeatedly demonstrated that they are not above manipulating their audience and influence to push anti-consumer behavior. So a video where they were “too spicy” for Google for promoting alternatives (some of which LMG themselves operate) is, to quote the children, sus. And yeah, it sounds like the issue has nothing to do with “don’t use gmail or youtube” and all to do with “use this random third party app that bypasses all the ads so you can still use youtube”.
“use this random third party app that bypasses all the ads so you can still use youtube”.
This has always been my beef with Rossman. He always has something to sell–not just sponsored content–his own apps and solutions. He comes off like a used car salesman, just pushing the hard sell and making you feel like an idiot for not jumping at the chance to give him money. I’m sure he has made some positive movement in privacy and right to repair, but every time he talks I just feel like he’s going to try to get me to sign up for a timeshare. I don’t trust him.
Great summary! Here is the other side of the debate:
-
The backpack is overengineered and spares no expense in materials and durability, making it expensive. It is not overpriced. It may be unreasonably costly and not worth the purchase. The reason being it costs a lot to manufacture, not because it’s overpriced.
-
Linus was stupid in his “no warranty needed” claim, as most people won’t (and shouldn’t) take his word for it. Nevertheless, it is true his store always replaced items without issue and continues to do so, warranty or not. The customer experience is generally much better than the average store, where you may have to fight for your warranty claim only for it to be refused anyway. This is what he meant. If stores are not honoring warranties, and his store is accepting returns without a warranty anyway, then what’s the piece of paper worth anyway? But people like the piece of mind it provides, they learned the lesson and are providing it now. Of course the warranty never mattered either way.
-
I did buy the backpack. Months later I received a replacement set of zippers. There is nothing wrong with the original zippers, they just felt these ones are better and people who bought the backpack before the change should get them too. This has never happened to me with another purchase in my life, where the store decided to upgrade it for free and ship it to another continent for free, without me asking.
-
Months later they discovered the material used for the backpack floor isn’t what they wanted. So they offered me (and all purchasers) a full refund and additional store credit. Nobody noticed the issue, nobody asked for refunds. They discovered it and offered refunds proactively, even though it’s a non-issue. Again never happen in my life with another purchase.
-
Shitty for the employee to shit on GN. Commendable for Linus to stand by his employee publicly instead of blaming him.
-
You are correct they had lot of quality issues. It is also worth mentioning their overhaul that happened after that, improved processed, slowed down upload cadence, and the formation of volunteer “beta tester” viewers who watch videos pre-release to find errors not found internally. Good for them to try to improve.
-
Auctioning off the prototype cooler was quite egregious! As usual Linus took the heat on himself and never named the responsible employee who misallocated the cooler in their inventory.
-
A third party investigation found the sexual harassment allegations unfounded. Due to the nature of this we might never know the details though.
-
Linus invited Naomi to meet him in the meeting rooms of his hotel’s lobby, which exist specifically for business meetings. She later untruthfully misrepresented it as an invite to his hotel room.
-
In general, the transparency at which their business operates makes it very easy to point out flaws. I think it’s better than the opaque businesses where this can’t happen.
-
I agree with these of your points I didn’t address.
Hope this provides both sides for readers, and thanks again.
I love how they only ever really paraphrased the report and never showed us on the sexual harassment allegations. Bill Barr behavior
“Trust me bro” and “I think individual smart light bulbs are a good idea” were when I had to put LTT in the Jays 2 cents corner of shame.
Oh man, I totally forgot about the Naomi Wu drama. I remember it kind of resolved in some way with some explanations of Linus maybe making some sense if you were generous. But under the light of everything that came after, eh, maybe it was serious after all.
Im curious, as mentioned in another comment mentioned here, what other/better courses of action would they have to take in order to “make better” with the communuty? They have taken lots of measures and changes to address all these concerns, but sounds like this is irredeemable from your point of view. Are there any points in this comment linked that you disagree with and why?
Im not trying to take a side, but rather see your comment as one sided of only accusations and not mentioning what they’ve done to make ammends.
“I can take a shit in a box and put a guarantee on it. Believe me, I’ve got the time. My point is all they’ve done is sold you a guaranteed piece of shit.”
Other than the stuff already mentioned here, people (probably fairly accurately) thought Linus was a salesman douche with no real knowledge of computers back in the NCIX days.
It was partially true, he was basically a warehouse manager who happened to get lucky making a successful youtube channel which he turned into his own media business after NCIX died.
But that’s what the key term is. It’s Linus Media Group. Their top goal is to create content that generates views for revenue, and not content that might be useful or takes a lot of effort to do.
Which is why you will almost never see any heavy IT people watching his videos. There are so many examples of people running entire data centers in their house better than LMG could do with actual budget, server space, and hardware. They used to use windows server for everything because they didn’t have anyone who knew linux lol.
Of course their biggest scandal was rushing content and not being diligent with their benchmarks. I honestly never had the impression that they were really the professionals or experts they present themselves to be.
That being said, I think if you view their videos more as entertainment and an entry level content into the IT world for people who otherwise wouldn’t be interested, their content is acceptable.
I wouldn’t watch their videos expecting to learn anything or trusting their expertise/benchmarks, but just for the vibes. Luckily we have real experts like tech jesus to keep them in check. I also think people who actually seek to learn something will eventually figure out LTT ain’t it.
They used to use windows server for everything because they didn’t have anyone who knew linux lol.
Obviously a Windows bad. Nothing else expected.
Because obviously this is the year of Linux desktop.
But yes, Windows sometimes is annoying. But so is Linux and it’s ton of distros.
Doesnt prevent me from using best of both worlds.
They’ve been criticized of rushing and skimping on accurate / ethical review practices. There are also allegations that LTT is a fairly toxic work environment, but, the former has more concrete evidence since the janky reviews were recorded and uploaded.
And on a more subjective note, a lot of people aren’t really into the way that Linus behaves on camera. I’m in this camp. I find that he often comes off pretty arrogant and belittling when he’s interacting with his staff on camera.
And on a more subjective note, a lot of people aren’t really into the way that Linus behaves on camera. I’m in this camp. I find that he often comes off pretty arrogant and belittling when he’s interacting with his staff on camera.
I remember on the old site years ago saying that Linus came off as a bit of a douchebag and being downvoted to hell for it. Like, I get having relationships with friends where we’re always bullying each other a bit, but it never seemed to me like he was ever on the recieving end of that.
Lied about a review of a product prototype they’d been sent. “Lost” it, gave a bad review based on tests of it (but it was a different product, not the actual one). Then later apparently they SOLD this prototype & told the company who had lent them it that they’d lost it.
So you can totally trust them claiming they didn’t sexually harass women employees. /s
Apparently posted a video about how to avoid ads on YouTube using adblockers, etc.
I left when every other video was about the personal lives of Linus or his staff. I know that developing the parasocial is important to any channel, but it turns me off.
Right? I learned how to block channel in FreeTube motivated entirely so I don’t have to see his stupid face in my recommendations
I feel like we’ll find out this was engineered for clicks by them.
i mean thumbnails are almost always engineered for the most engagement, yes.
and theirs are clearly clickbaity
For visibility, here is a list of ways around youtube ads the video was supposedly banned for mentioning:
Desktop:
- https://freetubeapp.io/
- https://github.com/LibreTubeApp/LibreTube
- https://github.com/yattee/yattee
- https://invidious.io/
- Apparently searching for a youtube url in Bing.com and clicking on the thumbnail gives you the video with no ads
Android:
I personally use Freetube and think it’s great
Problem #00001: Relying on googlevideo in order to obtain information on how to avoid Google.
Sure, but they can’t get people to use it without utilizing the power of their competitor. You know, it’s like when a racing company steals a competitor’s car and then uses it to race against them. Totally legal. Definitely wouldn’t be banned.
I just bought a Google Pixel!
So that I can install GrapheneOS on it.
I wish it didn’t have to be that way, lol. Can’t we have some quality third party hardware?
Can’t they work it out? I don’t want to use Google hardware and I don’t want to use Google software. One provides one fix the other lacks.
This is sooooo incredibly sad!!! I’m currently on an older iPhone and probably getting a Pixel next month; I would really have liked it if there were a bigger variety of phones where I could live truly Google-free, and I would much prefer not having to give Google money to not be reliant on Google…
Buy second hand or refurbished. Better for the planet, cheaper and you aren’t directly giving google anything :)
This is the route I’m probably going to go. Once I’m comfortable getting Graphene set up the way I need to. I do a lot of electronic payments and such so I need to make sure all those will work.
It’s just a shame it doesn’t have any extra micro SSD card slots for extra storage…
I went through three Pixels (6, 6 pro, and 7) with Graphene before I finally gave up. Not because of Graphene, but because Pixels break so easily, and even small damage to the screen will almost certainly render the phone unusable. I’m a contractor, and I need a phone that can handle some moderate abuse. But even with Otterbox cases, my Pixels could just not hang.
Sadly, with a heavy heart and a wounded concience, I’ve gone back to Samsung. Yes, they spy on me, and yes I absolutely detest it, but at least I can drop my phone once a month and not have to replace it or pay $200 for a screen replacement.
That really blows. I have an office job and am generally easy on my electronics. Hopefully I won’t have any serious problems, but thanks for the heads up.
Dropped my phone (Pixel 7) a number of times. Can’t say I am trying hard.
I have a matte screen protector and a regular case on my phone. No cracks.
Tell me you don’t have a note without telling me you don’t have a note;-;.
Always wanted a pixel myself, but similar thing being in a trade. My note 9 has a bent screen ffs and still works perfectly. It just needs to be pressed shut pccasionally… 200$ to replace the screen though, fuck that.
Lmao, not trying to jinx myself here, but I break my phones yearly, except this pixel 8 pro, which mostly only has the scratches on it that I got while waiting for the liquid glass screen protector to come in. This phone is a pretty good contender for being my longest used, minus my BlackBerry z10, a phone I miss dearly (you could replace everything minus the main board for 40 bucks). But yeah, it’s got some scratches since then, but again, I seem to break my phones yearly.
Here is the video in question.
Hopefully it stays up. If not, someone might want to push to archive.org / peertube /etc…
