This was a difficult video to make. We ask that you listen to our concerns, commentary, and statements with an open mind. We would not have made this video if we didn't view it as important and necessary. Thank you. Update: Linus has posted a response. Here it is and here are our comments (you'll need to watch this first video before though to have the context): ua-cam.com/video/X3byz3txpso/v-deo.html
I love this channel in the end when I want serious testing that is unbiased upfront and accurate I come to Gamers Nexus plain and simple. You guys do a great job keep hitting it out the park Gamers Nexus.
Phew, looking forward to how this plays out. While you’re at it, I’d also like to know your take ok Hardware Unboxed. I find them quite biased, pick and choose and high nosed. Not reliable source for factual information but rather opinion pieces with a bit of test data here and there.
Steve and crew, I waited to watch this video until after finishing my creative for the day so I could go into it with a clear open mind. As someone who has made many many mistakes and honestly am working hard to limit them as much as possible have to say that I genuinely appreciated your attention to detail regarding examples and the insight not only from your perspective and expertise but the insight presented in various clips from LMG... but also your offering of advice on how to be a better reviewer overall. As someone who simply cannot provide the level of detail that you do it gives me something to constantly strive for. I sincerely hope that LMG doesnt take this as an attack but a real eye opener on a broader problem they may not be as evident from their end. As the Walmart Greeter to the tech world, Im glad you are managing the Service Department!
The Billet Labs thing was vile. They didn't follow the instructions from BL, tested on a different card, and didn't contact BL before releasing the video. Then they publicly shamed BL for issues caused by LTT's own mistakes. And if that wasn't enough, they sold the prototype even though they agreed - twice - to return it. The whole "it was for charity" excuse makes it seem that they don't believe they can be held accountable for their actions.
@@inkredebilchina9699probably hard for a small company to come up with that kind of cash for a lawyer considering they just lost their product with all their hard R&D probably setting them back at least 6 months or more.
If I bought a new mouse, and felt the friction was bad... and then figured out there was a film that I hadnt removed, my first thought would be "I'm an idiot", not "why tf did they not tell me there was film?!"
Agreed. Devil's advocate though, when the Fold 3 was released it had a screenprotector looking film over the big screen. Many owners tried to peel it off only to realize it's not a peel and ruining their screen. LTT should have apologized, with the note that if they were that stupid, others could be as well and instructions or text on the plastic would make it clearer that it should be peeled off.
@@huskers1278 One has a larger audience than the other, true, but there still is major crossover of audience already between the two content creators. I'm one of them, and if you read the comments, you'll see others are as well.
@@huskers1278Your point is so stupid. GN clearly made this video heavy harded and he said he didn't enjoy it. But for him we the consumers are the most important and thats why he needed to do this video. It feels so good still having reviewers like GN and HW unboxed. The only ones you can trust almost 100% Imao.
I'm long time LTT fan, and I fully support and agree with Steve. This is tough love, but this kind of video is exactly what the tech community needs. Constructive criticism and honest assessments push the industry forward and prevent companies from becoming complacent. Steve's willingness to speak his mind shows his dedication to the field and his desire to see it thrive. Keep up the great work!
Just the kind of thing we need in this kind of industry, independent reviewers not only checking the manufacturers claims but also cross checking other reviewers to make sure no one is full of shit. It is kinda sad that it is necessary but misinforming the customers will only hurt the whole industry in the long term.
Which, TBF, is kinda GN's whole schtick. "Look, here's what we know about a situation/product. No unnecessary drama, very little opinion (and what opinion is provided is backed up with extensive experience and data), just what we know to be true about the situation at hand." Of course, will people see it as such? Some will, for sure. Many, even. But there's bound to be that ever-vocal minority of fuckwits who just don't get it and need to make themselves heard.
Well we watched a completely different video. There was shade thrown through the entire thing and bitching about insignificant errors. Nothing in the test errors would have hurt the overall reviews and didn’t hurt any customer
@@Ttamlin The worst part of that ever-vocal minority is those who are currently absolutely raiding and dogpiling on LTT channels with non-constructive hate comments. It completely undermines the intentions this video. It's a bit of a shame that GN doesn't explicitly denounce and discourage such behaviour. Considering GN's attitude, they clearly don't endorse it.
Their treatment of billet labs is absolutely unbelievable. Not only does it disqualify them from being taken seriously as reviewers. But the fact that they would sell their prototype after agreeing to send it back after spitting in their face...... That's insane
If a competitor does bring a similar product to market based off reverse engineering the prototype they never should have had, LMG is going to pay out big time via lawsuit.
The Billet Labs story was devastating to hear especially as someone who knows first hand how giant companies stomp all over small startups trying to provide new innovative products. Linus’s casual dismissal of actually trying to properly test the product by saying “it’ll cost money” is the most asinine thing I ever heard.
the "it costs money" is always relevant, it being GN, LTT and especially small channels that dont have much to spend in the first place. if you dont consider the cost you wont make money wich means the channel/business cant exist.
I think the scarier thing is that they auctioned off an active prototype. Imagine this was a company like Nvidia or amd. There would be lawyers and lawsuits lining up left and right if they even remotely did anything even remotely close to what they did with billet.
The real problem there is the LTX auction of the Billet Labs prototype. All their time and effort could easily be for nothing if a larger competitor bought it and released a cheaper clone of it to market before BL could - especially considering the R&D cost that BL will have had to go through to get to that point. I could see that ending up in front a judge under loss of earnings, breach of contract and trade secrets issues depending on what NDAs etc were in place around the LTT testing piece.
This is a very much needed video to encourage Linus to face what he's been encouraging us to do for years. To call out companies for wrongdoing and misrepresentation.
@@gagnarork Hold on, you missed an important key component. It wasn't that Luke disagreed with Linus, he disagreed with the way it was presented. Linus was right, he just marketed it wrong.
"I'm not willing to spend money to correct mistakes" Mistakes cost money. You make a mistake, you should be willing to pay to correct it. If you can't afford it, do it right the first time. Some of these mistakes, I suspect, will eventually end in a lawsuit that they will try and crowd fund for.
I definitely see that happening. That and their whole trust me bro attitude towards everything reeks of supreme arrogance with the crowd. But given LTX sold out "whale" tickets at 10k a pop there are a lot more fools with money that would gladly help support him than not.
All that crap he said is just that, crap. It's code language for I'm a POS and do not care. It isn't about the money. Or the time. It's about just not giving a F and being terrible.
LTT can't spend hundreds to correct a video but Steve can make and release a video that's gonna get millions of views and not even monetize it in any way and get paid for his bold efforts. Truly exceptional.
@@CR7Ashironaldothese UA-camrs make millions and millions of dollars ya know but you can’t demonize a video UA-cam doesn’t give you option when you upload video if it’s gets monetized or not I upload videos and get 1000s of views but they don’t do that so he still getting paid
@@JustinEdge-i3imy guy, what in the world are you talking about. You obviously can remove advertisements on/from videos. Both by dodging a paid advert, and by disabling normal UA-cam ads.
2M + views in 24 hours is big. Steve solo writing, hosting, and editing so no one else on the team could be under fire is also exactly the type of move you want to see from a leader.
Going back and seeing ALL the crazy errors makes it so funny that Linus was basically like "Why couldn't GN come to my in private and tell me my entire lazy business model was constantly producing bad results?" As if he A responds well to Criticism and B would have actually changed anything after a private conversation with a smaller content creator he clearly does not like. Steven could have said all this in a text and or whatever Linus thought he was owed and Linus would not have changed shit.
Been watching LTT for about ten years. Went from learning to build my first PC from them to becoming a cpu design engineer at AMD. In the past year or so, I had felt like that content had started to go down hill, but couldn’t put my finger on what exactly. This video does a good job summing up information in the least inflammatory way.
As a fan of LTT, this video was a real eye opener for me. Thank you for your effort in holding the industry and community accountable. The Billet Labs situation is heartbreaking, and I hope they will be able to obtain some legal help to combat this injustice. You’ve gained my respect and I’ll definitely be tuning into your content more often.
@@shocktnc True, but hopefully this’ll inspire a tech-passionate lawyer to take this on as pro-bono case. Edit: I’m sure a good part of the community would be willing to help fund a lawsuit if Billet Labs would allow it.
I couldn't of said it better myself. I watch lmg videos daily, and even bought the screwdriver. I am extremely disappointed with lmg. I hope lmg can satisfactorily explain themselves, correct the situation, and get on the path of being the channels I remember them being. The rose color glasses have faded and i will be looking at lmg much more critically from now on. I think I will wait for an appropriate response from lmg before I watch their content again.
Linus Tech Tips made a massively erroneous video about antivirus vs anti-malware, claiming that anti-malware was something different you needed when in truth antivirus is simply an antiquated term that vendors use (even though every product is technically anti-malware these days). Not only that, they used this misinformation to promote a sponsored product under false pretenses, you needed this product because 'antivirus' wasn't enough. It was such B.S that I made a correction video and reached out to them to help correct the factual issues in that sponsored content, but they never responded and ignored our emails.
I feel bad for Billet Labs especially... They should sue, then Linus might rethink that comment about not wanting to spend that $500 to properly test the product and then AUCTION IT OFF. GN always has my full respect for not being afraid of backlash or reprisal from any burnt bridges they make to reveal the truth to us all. Thank you for your constant great content.
You feel bad for them... o really? While displaying a hammer and sickle...? The symbol under which millions died. Please come out of whatever self-righteous hole you are in and check yourself.
and that's the Problem Sueing them will cost a Lot more then the Prototype and then there is no Guarantee you'd win and Lose even more Money and most Courts won't even touch a Case over $500
@@deltasixgamingIt's still just a civil action so it would qualify for being settled in a small claims court which, in most cases, is cheaper than a regular claims, high crimes court (still not a criminal proceeding).
@@jayviescas7703 there are a Lot of Factors like this is 2 Companies and what was sold was a Priceless Prototype, Honestly they should have noticed their Mistake and Found it then Bought it back and sent it back or they should have Sent back when they said they would which was Long before they sold it
@@deltasixgaming It's more than just property theft, it's that Billet Labs also faces future problems as a company due slander and libel from LMT's bad practices.
The billet labs situation sounds like a massive lawsuit to me. A company loaning a proprietary prototype under assumption and assurance of getting said prototype back. And then finding out, after 2 separate promises to return it, that it has been sold off on auction to a potential competitor?? Might be multi million dollar lawsuit.
@@m4nt1c0r3spretty sure they still have a case to be argued considering the fact that they have VIDEO EVIDENCE of them using the prototype, and not sending it back. Which at the very least they can argue that their unfair review dealt significant damage to their startup company
This viewer was a former Quality control Inspector and appreciates the work you put into every video. The drama is uncomfortable, but the truth is worth the pursuit.
It is unfortunate that this factual look at the failings of lmg is being framed as being UA-camr drama, as that makes it sound much more trivial than the situation actually is.
The truth hurts. But i think Linus isn't to far gone to take the pain and improve the situation instead of posting another meaningless statement in the LTT forums as a response to this.
@@SeithonJetterit is trivial. They are testing gaming pcs, not MRIs or Kidney Dialysis Machines. None of the errors changed the overall review of the items at hand
I never looked at LTT as more than infotainment, but I never paid close enough attention to see how bad they actually are. Kudos for bringing up such an important issue in tech journalism despite how uncomfortable it must have been to do.
There are only a few trustworthy channels, GN being one of them. That said, I think it's better people do their own research and not rely too much on any reviews or reviewers.
Sadly you kinda need to let go of that if you want the health of the PC community. LMG is like a gateway channel into the PC/tech enthusiast space. Meaning people see them as an authority and trustworthy. A channel will only have cause to improve if the audience leaves. Unsubscribe and tell youtube to not recommend their channels. That’s all we can do. If not, people will enter the space with bad information. IMO that’s worse than if they never get in at all. Unless you want to say that learning to recognize Linus’ BS is an important step in the community.
@@dog61 How, exactly, do you expect people to "do their own research" without "relying on reviewers"? Not everyone can have a team of experts and a backlog of hardware going back a decade to test every piece of hardware out there to compare and contrast the benefits and detractors. Unless you mean for people aggregate their own data, average it, and then use that as a basis. Well, you're still relying on data from reviewers, just a lot more of them. And you're aggregating data that may not be compatible, thus causing more misinformation to be spread and used for purchasing decisions.
The billet shit is actually crazy; the trust they placed in LMG to do their job without a legally binding contract, just for them to irreparably and unfairly damage their company is saddening. I’ve been a long time fan of Linus, but to me, this incident alone is unforgivable, especially given his dismissal of people’s criticisms of the original review with “muh couple hundred buckerinos tho!”.
Linus: “I need more time” Employee: “can I have more time?” Linus: “no get back to work pay is too expensive” . . Also Linus: *renovating and kitting out his entire house with tech and latest and greatest gadgets*
Linus says whatever will play with people at any given time. He's become very good at currying sympathy from the people he's fucked over. The guy seems like a weasel.
Something that concerns me is that Linus's reply to this basically says "Steve didn't follow journalistic practices by contacting me and letting me rebut these claims before publishing". Does this mean Linus thinks "proper journalistic / professional practices" include notifying your buddies about something bad you discovered about them and let them downplay it before your piece even comes out? What school of journalism did Linus go to? He is confusing professionalism with buddy buddy relationships and perhaps that is permeating the entire structure of his organization.
@@johngoodman5094 Well in a lot of cases you do ask the entity you're writing about to make a statement just before you publish, to give them a chance to comment on allegations. Now it doesn't have to be that way, but in this case I probably would have said it would have been better had GN done it.
@MarNieCo maybe but did linus reach out before publishing the video on the water block? And if he thought the price was its big problem and no amount of performance improvement would change that stance why make a video on it at all? Also does he reach out to computer manufacturers before uploading his secret shopper videos? Same sort of journalistic coverage, does he give them a chance to defend themselves before posting a video putting them on blast for any number of reasons?
TBF saying nobody should sounds more like opinion than making a choice for someone, sure as big as linus is his word is influential. that being said misinformation isnt a good look either
Regaurdless of if someone will buy it, they clearly built it as a marketing tool for their other products. It's kinda like when an auto manufacturer builds a crazy concept car and has reviewers to look at it and show off their capabilities. Testing the product incorrectly defeats the point of the entire exercise.
@@theconsigliere8463 His opinion is what people base their purchases on. He is not like you (a rando on the internet) whos opinion people have 0 reason to listen to let alone allow it to impact them.
@@theconsigliere8463 I don't know, if as soon as you don't see value in one thing you immediatly go into "nobody should buy this" mode (especially given how stubborn Linus is), I find this to both be the less nerdy and most self-centered approach. The tech hobby would also be really boring.
This video popped up on my feed, courtesy of UA-cam's algorithm. Wow... after watching twice, I can tell that this was a difficult video for you to make. Calling out your peers when they are doing a disservice to your community is never easy thing to do. I deeply admire your tactful and very well-spoken coverage of this story. At all times, you strived to be respectful and fair to LMG while providing honest and informative coverage for your viewers. Bravo, sir!! I've subscribed, and look forward to working my way though your catalog of excellent videos. Keep up the excellent work. 👍
@@iceman5117, bruh, you mad that Linus got a reality check? The whole tech community is better for it. I watched Linus for almost a decade and having him slip into disinfo and butthurt takes when people call him out is heartbreaking. Linus was supposed to be one of the trusted sources and now he started turning into what we hated about tech UA-cam back in the day. He should be thanking Steve and not butthurting over his faults that affect countless consumers.
Selling the cooling block without consent and potentially giving it too their competitor all the while they sent it too you in the first place under good faith is such a deep cut. They just killed someone else's idea and potential lively hood because they couldn't be fucked giving a damn.
The timing on this video is really interesting since Linus just talked about, on the LAN show, how content creators don't get held accountable for unethical behavior because their fan base enables them to live in their own little echo chamber.
i mean he already pulled linus on their forum saying that the video is right but that is not that bad. he says they havent sold the prototype but auctioned it off for charity, as if that would be any better.
We can't antagonize videogame companies for releasing unfinished products (which we are justified to do) while accepting LMG releasing unfinished and known erroneous tests. Creators like GN have shown you can be ethical and thorough, we must demand better.
Everyone and every company has or will make mistakes, some of them not so serious and some are. You shouldn't be judged for those mistakes but how you respond to them and so far LTT has a pretty good reputation for response time and quality.
@@DiustheZLinus' response on the LTT forums (coward) has been nothing but smells just like the typical letter that a huge AAA studio puts out after a bad release, "we're just a small indie dev studio bro", "I hope Steve can stop his bitching and come back into the Team Media fray" Fck the guy and his ego
As not super tech person, I will never build my own pc. Some of nexus stuff goes over my head. So i sometimes watch other people. But nexus always summeries and trys to make it clear on what the average person should steer towards and trust the graphs that nexus puts up. Appreciate you guys, steering clear of ltt forever.
That was pretty much an execution without fair trial, absolutely insane. I went into this controversy with the "people make mistakes" mindset but this is hard to explain with that.
@@filip9587 It is, but that kind of "cheapskate" behaviour is also one of the ways they've been able to grow so large as to spend so much on videos in general. The money they haven't spent on being more thorough instead gets spent on growth.
His character has been obvious since the all in one watercooling thing. He could have bought airconditioning so his staff didn't have to work in an extremely hot envrionment, but instead he tried to do it on the cheap and also make content out of it. His solution would never work. One of the biggest double downs I've ever seen was on a WAN show episode where Linus misspoke and said 108060p. Instead of just saying he misspoke he dug his heels in and went on a tangent about how he's correct.
Luke is such a decent dude and recognises so many of these problems, and Linus just keeps steamrolling him any time he tries to bring it up or defend the criticism on the WAN Show. I genuinely feel for him.
Linus' credibility was dead to me when he was dumb enough to put his companie's work on a massive RAID0 and then happily make a video about trying to recover it when it had a failure because there was no recent backups of it.
I honestly come to GN for in-depth analysis. This is probably the only channel that goes into a deep dive on all products they review. Thank you GN for everything.
Bravest review of a reviewer I’ve ever seen. You guys keep speaking truth to power. You’re doing more than just correcting an injustice. You are setting an example for others in a world increasingly focused on profit maximization at all costs. Kudos!
I'm a huge LTT fan, probably my fav UA-camr group. But these errors in videos have been getting more and more frequent lately. Great job to the GN team on making this video to highlight these to the community and LMG. Hopefully LMG does the right thing and takes on this criticism, take a step back, slow down if required and release content that is thoroughly scrutinised internally before publishing.
I agree. They've gotten to big to fast. Linus isn't able to stay on top of things like he used to. He basically shows up, entertains and leaves to the next project! No in-depth thought is given, no time. Finnish the video and move on to the next one.
I think the ownership of LTT is already so far into buisness side of things - commercialization and expansion, that there is no return from here. It will only get bigger and more focused on commercial entertainment like some tech department of a big publisher. In other words - LTT is going mainstream.
Same here, I like them but many of these are apparent. Especially the fixes through annotations, I'm really not sure if there was a video for a long time now, that did not have any. And Short Circuit for me is in clear opposition to the very idea of Labs. I was posting negative comments under many videos on Short Circuit because they tend to spew complete lies or push some weird personal opinions. And Linus himself clearly grew too big, but very fortunately he gets it and he hired someone to be the ceo he cannot.
I've noticed that over the last couple of years LTT seems to be moving further and further away from serious review and more and more toward being an entertainment channel. I get it. Entertainment is where the most money is but they're still purporting themselves to be a serious channel so it definitely has the potential to be problematic.
Its always been entertainment Linus focused on engaging nerdy entertaining shit with access to latest tech. You would go to other channels to find the intricate nerdy specsheet stuff cause ltt didn't focus on that anymore I find it more atrocious ppl attacking ltt in these comments as if they're some big bad corpo doing this on purpose its more that they've grown such a huge influence they need to take their QC more seriously than ever
@@Ordo1980but its not fully finalised. This al reads to me as they started up labs and haven't refined their QC enough Doesnt excuse the errors but its not malicious or anything
@@furythree They ARE doing it on purpose. Have you seen the interviews? They ALL know it, even Linus himself. Knowing there's a problem and not fixing it (when the fix is quite obvious) means you keep doing it on purpose.
How the hell do you notice that your mouse is resisting movement too much and not immediately go to check weather there is something stuck to the bottom? There are no excuses for that, its just plain bad production quality, a 15 yo timmy that spent the previous 16 years of his life watching tiktoks and ruining his attention span would pay more attention to this
The Billet Labs situation is simply inexcusable. Like I can let a lot of other stuff slide, but they not only screwed up the testing and refused to acknowledge it, they illegally sold the prototype. And acted like total pricks on top of that. WTF is the deal?
Yh this is the most egregious to me, Linus can be a prick, (like any of us tbf) and he's quite stubborn sometimes, (again also true of myself) but this one he needed to reflect and for some reason couldn't obviously more to this story
Agreed - I don’t care how much it costs, they need to get the block back. If the block landed in the hands of a competitor or malicious Chinese product cloning company… holy shit, they’re in hot waters.
LTT is the company who often says "We like there to be more competition" ... but new startups pop up and get broken down like that. I really wished they would have taken proper time to make the video with the gpu it was intended for and gave that company more of a fair shot.
To be fair Linus has responded directly saying this was an accident and they weren't aware that the company wanted the part back and will pay them for the agreed price of the prototype.
It's Linus's true colors on display for all to see. This isn't new, but now it's just gotten way more serious. You can be a moronic asshole when it's just "for entertainment", but if you're doing legit reviews, that shit won't fly and can get you into real legal trouble.
The stuff with Billet is actually so incredibly fucked up To have their prototype grossly misrepresented, slandered based on that misrepresentation and then to have their best prototype essentialy stolen and completely fucking up their R&D is honestly beyond words. LTT legitimately deserve to be sued for that
holly s*** that was infuriating to say the least...was bad enough to test the thing wrong but sold a prototype without any permission to potential competition...what the actual fu**!
@@Kytori95 if your product is going to be reviewed by a large tech outlet, and that is the most publicity that your small startup is going to get, it wouldn’t make sense for them to send a sub-par prototype for review, no? Given LTT’s general reputation and size, I’m sure they trusted them to handle their prototype with care, and not do something like “auction” it away lol
Reminder that linus isn't a tech guy, he was a computer salesman with video experience who started critically assessing technical details. He doesn't understand most non-gaming-set-up hardward in context, his entire experience is in doing benchmarks and playing games. And LTT copies that infantile lack of knowledge.
THAT blew my mind. They're apparently a properly large company that does a lot of work in the tech sphere. Linus is rich enough that he invested $200,000 of his own money in a company. He was unwilling to invest at most $500 to properly test something, which is what his company was built on. And the thing is, it's the company's money he's talking about, and that I'm sure has even more money in its budget than his personal finances. I've worked for shows with low-to-mid 6-figure annual budgets and they've been more willing to spend $500 on things to get stuff right.
It likely had more to do with the production schedule or not wanting people to work OT to redo the shoot and some company policy associated with OT. I'm sure he phrased it about as poorly as possible which is his MO.
I think he was more implying that he feels the product is so worthless that spending any more time and money on it would be impossible to justify. If they messed up the numbers for a major Nvidia drop, they'd absolutely pay to re-test. Problem is, Linus was in no position to judge the quality of the cooling block because they tested it wrong in the first place.
Bro easily spends a small fortune on an industrial climate controlled temperature stress test chamber, but won’t drop a few hundred on properly testing a prototype product without fucking it up 💀
MY heart sank when I heard that they auctioned off the prototype of the cooling block. A small company can die with mishaps that they had no control over and communicated several times that the protype needed to be sent back.
@@letmelick yup. It seems the inventory control system if one exists at LMG seems to hapzard at best with no one logging whether products are loaned out and returned etc no chain of custody so to speak. The requirement of the block being returned should of been included in this inventory control system. When an item is destroyed or sold that item should be removed from the inventory control system and should of raised a Red flag and prevented that item from leaving LMG possession and being auctioned off.
The way this video has blown up in just 24 hours tells me this is something the community felt / was aware of in varying degrees but couldn't quantify. You've laid it all out here. Thank you.
The community response (at least from the LTT sub-Reddit) seems to be mostly in agreement with the video. It seems like something like this was a long time coming.
Anybody who has ever watched any of LTTs "projects" could tell you this was coming from a million miles away. For having so many engineers on staff now there really is no excuse for having such terrible quality engineering solutions for *ALL* of their projects, unless they are only hiring engineers that no engineering firms would touch. They have turned it into a joke now about how bad all of their projects are, but that's just embarrassing when they have literally never made ANYTHING that is actually impressive.
I know I’m late to the party, but this was my first watch through of this video and wanted to add my long story. I got into PC building because of LTT and still really enjoy their material as an entertainment company. When I first heard of this controversy, it sounded like mostly UA-cam drama and I never watched this video and hadn’t watched this channel previously. As a biology researcher, I really appreciate your point about the data and testing inaccuracies. As a consumer, it is important to know the accurate data or components along with the real world application. I appreciate your informative take, even when it includes people that you have a personal relationship with. I still really enjoy LTT content and believe that there are many intelligent people working there and hope that this whole situation helps the company improve internal business practices. I won’t pretend to understand the business of a media group, but for me the key fact is that if you position yourself as a reviewer offering data driven reviews the data should be accurate and the test methods flushed out. I know the growing pains of a young lab and this conversation is important. Thank you for your willingness to have this difficult conversation. Subscribed.
My biggest issue with Linus is his refusal to accept criticism. He will certainly talk about this on the WAN show. He will also certainly say something along the lines of "I get what Gamer Nexus is trying to say, BUT." He'll then discredit the video and take zero ownership.
As a huge LTT fan. This video was sorely needed and professionally brought attention to stuff i didnt even notice. Ive felt something has been off with ltt but paid no mind. Stellar video.
agreed, especially the billet situation is INSANE to me and Billet should definitely take legal actions against LMG for selling their prototype aswell as slander chargers for knowingly using their product incorrectly.
I go to them for entertainment, not objective data. I think they put too much effort into appealing to a younger crowd (no problem with that at all), and trying to get involved in WAY too many things... Selling tons of merch, expanding the test lab, the company has rapidly expanded rather than matured and gotten better in what they do, if you get what I'm saying.
Linus is a total fraud and always has been. Watch his first year of videos. Total joke. He started as a clueless little spoiled rich kid who thought he could show off his “knowledge” of the stuff daddy bought him.
I just don't understand how they auctioned off a prototype. That has to be illegal, it was never theirs. And to think a competitor may have bought it...
Not defending the situation because Steve is still correct, however he did cut out the reason why Linus said that, which was due to the price alone. He stated that regardless of outcome, the “conclusion” would be the same because the cooler was something like $800, thus doesn't make sense to buy other than for looks. They then went on a rant about if pricing can make something a bad product, that's where Luke's comment came from. I do wish that bit was left in for context, however yes I do agree the situation to begin with was stupid. This doesn’t even get into how that prototype got auctioned, which is actually appalling. In this I am only offering context for people to inform their own opinions with. You could watch that segment of the show if you want the entire context, I would suggest people do that in order to inform themselves further. I suspect your opinions won’t change (as mine has not), but being fully informed is always better than not.
I'm a huge fan of LTT and that one was especially hard to watch. Super disrespectful and unprofessional. They should track down whoever bought it and pay them whatever they want to buy it back so they can return the property that was never theirs.
They used to be decent but I noticed the quality dipping around the time they started with the reaction image thumbnails. If a channel has to resort to gimmicks, it tends to mean their content alone isn't quality enough to draw attention.
The odd thing about them raffling off the Billet Labs prototype is in the latest WAN show, Linus was complaining about someone giving out their prototype LMG backpack as he said it's a "misrepresentation of the product" and can damage their brand if someone who gets that prototype thinks it's the actual product. lmao
Linus potentially ruined the lives of the founders of a small startup because he is a monster. The fact he is so flippant about protecting his own bottomline while costing other people theirs, is just disgusting.
While his take with the prototype on the video was horrible and harmful for no reason, the act of selling it was an extreme case of stupid and carelessness - I wouldn't call that act "evil". But don't be mistaken, as it is still inexcusable for such sloppiness to occur.
This video is why I immensely respect Steve and GN. I hope the LTT crew sees this video with an open mind and accepts it as constructive criticism, as I take that it is meant to be. Good work.
He won't. Linus won't take any of the valid criticism and work to improve it. This is probably going to get really ugly fast. Let's make sure we support GN and show Linus that we demand integrity from tech review channels.
I was expecting some mild criticisms, but this is pretty devastating, especially the Billet issue. Really maddening how they can so blithely destroy a new company's reputation for the sake of saving a few hundred dollars, then pocketing their one-of-a-kind product to sell to (literally) the highest bidder. Sad state of affairs.
I dont think it was a matter of paying an employee. I think if Linus admitted to the wrong doing, it would do more damage, so he was looking for an out so to speak. And selling the prototype? Makes zero sense considering how much money that company brings in. It's baffling that they sold the prototype.
@@thecasualcanuck4590I suspect that it has less to do with the money and more with the prestige of having this one of a kind, super special thing to sell. "Look at how cool I am, I have this thing that nobody else has to flog to the highest bidder."
@johnmarhefka4794 I mean, they could have just donated the money lol. Selling someone else's property really doesn't look good for anyone. And plainly donating the cash would have made a better impression I would think
I managed the AMD test lab for years ,all I can tell you is, it is your job you are right and every product you receive should be thoroughly tested. Reviews/specs should be repeatable. Managers, directors and marking will drive you as hard as they can until your show reflects it. DONT NOT let them push you. Remember your audience, don't be a tec target. Kudos to you sir for standing for your principals
@@MinamiX3 I don't care much about errors in data, nobody in their right mind would trust YT video for such data, and it's plenty good enough for quick heads up on how stuff compares. Mouse feet fiasco was acknowledged prior to this video coming out. Billet labs stuff is problematic but as far as I understand from LTT forums, it has been already resolved prior to this video coming out. A lot of Linus's comments about the Billet lab's is taken from context and it is obvious he is talking about the product not making any sense financially no matter the performance, and those people that would want it wouldn't judge it on performance basis anyway. Funny how when I hear GN I first thing I think about is what new drama there is, very on brand.
Oh, and I don't care about LTT anyway, I don't really watch their content apart from listening to WAN show. And fuck them for showcasing Russian war criminal's products in their recent short circuit. Despite that, this GN video is just drama seeking .
I love Gamers Nexus for calling out the nonsense no matter who the perpetrator is. One of the most genuine groups of reviewers/content makers for any field.
I think we should hold our horses on that story, who would just send away their irreplaceable prototype without which you can't continue product development to some youtuber (even a big one). Not having the proper legal contracts and such I can see at a small 2 person company but from a engineering side you never ever let someone film your prototype unless you got the patents and everything and much less you're giving it outhouse. (unless you're super desperate for some funding and your project is basically dead in the water)
@@kunicrossgaming Bro, stop victim blaming, try to think if a big brand like Asus give Linus their $1000 GPU for them to test I would doubt his team would trash talk it after doing a faulty product representation then sell it away. What Billet Labs should have done should not be the center of discussion, what Linus has done should be.
@@acu01136 Clickbait would mean that the title or imagery is sensationalized to provoce higher throughput. This is not the case, when you watch the video. Points ARE being made against LMG and substantiated with proof. You could say this is spicy, but what you see is in fact what you get here.
@@nRumbaIIwhen you ask for their statements, they'll lie and change the narrative beforehand like what Linus tried to do anyway with Billet labs, saying they already compensated them, when they in fact haven't.
This is the first I've heard of it. I'm flabbergasted. Are there any legal actions they could take as, I would assume, that was their proprietary IP? LMG should be held accountable for their actions, it's shocking
@@filip9587 Not to mention the harm to their reputation due to a lazy and incompetent review no "token" figure of compensation can fix that. If it was in the US they'd be able to sue for "punitive" damages and probably win given the situation.
@@filip9587especially since there were people from other companies there that specialize in coolers.. they may have sold off a prototype that wasn’t their property to a corporate rival. Insanity
I feel so sorry for Billet Labs. I really hope they can proceed with their project and someone more responsible gets to take a look at their product. I would like for this to be examined a bit more. If it all happened as described, all companies sending their sensitive equipment to LTT should think twice about doing so.
I feel that this now should be taken to legal, Billet labs should be suing LMG for breach of contract, loss of earnings, theft and misrepresentation, Linus thinks too much of himself, I have given up with their channel ever since they started the Labs project, it's just an 24/7 display of turd polishing. If someone doesn't go legal against them soon then that will show how weakly the tech industry responds to reviewers who do not even know what they are looking at or are willing to fulfil an agreement which could destroy a company.
LTT has and aways will be the most mainstream outlet for tech related videos. They constantly sacrifice valuable information as a result of their rushed video production and light tone, and I rarely feel satisfied after watching their videos as a result.
@@elementary7283there's a difference between making a mistake on your own expense and someone else's. Even more ridiculous is selling the product which you don't own and has been explicitly asked back for.
Linus's comment about not spending a few hundred bucks on Re testing the water block is nothing short of spitting in the face of both Billet Labs and LTT viewers, that was truly offensive and revolting.
I just hope Linus takes the criticism positively, he seems like one the only people on this platform able to take a big L and still be cool about it (hopefully not making a clingy UA-cam apology video, I think those are a bit different cuzz they come off as just damage control rather than self improvement)
@@tram1839 Ahh, I feel like that is exactly what will happen unfortunately, I've followed him seldomly before and his podcasts... it seemed like he got burned out, and lost passion for his work, and simply put, just doesn't enjoy doing it anymore, hence why he was stepping down. And if there's no passion like in case of LTT, and you are just doing for the money then the quality of the content is bound to take a deep dive... and there's no1 to replace him at the LTT unfortunately. It honestly feels the exact same way like Buzzfeed to me...
The Billet Labs bit was absolutely outrageous. How on earth can Linus defend selling someone else's prototype despite agreeing twice they'd return it?!
I don't really care much for technology, but how this startup was treated is unfair and highly pretentious, it reeks of privilege. I find it offensive. It's time for some humility. They should change their ways. Steve is really some consumer advocate. A real honest video.
Selling someone else's prototype after absolutely demolishing it in their video for its "worst value" and then doubling down on their mistake is just scummy.
@@gramma677 That throwaway comment was just further evidence of a bad attitude on the part of one member of Labs. The real mistakes were in the terrible test results which were portrayed as accurate despite being fundamentally flawed. Deliberately putting out videos based on the shoddy testing and causing viewers to make misguided decisions about significant purchases is just unprofessional, for any tech channel and especially one with such a huge following.
It's disgraceful, especially for a small company trying to make quality products, then Linus butchers the whole thing, doubles, then triples down saying a Multi-Million dollar company can't be bothered to use the right GPU and it may cost him $100-$500 to rectify it, no ethics there and blatant disregard for Billet Labs that could seriously damage them financially. Shame on LMG.
The auctioning of the watercooling prototype had my jaw on the floor. That's utterly insane. I doubt they'll ever get cooperation from startups after this (unless like framework Linus owns a stake in them).
this is an interesting point I imagine GN likely would have wanted to cover if they felt they could- it's clear LTT at this point will only publish positive reviews if there is profit in it! everything else they will be more inclined to be harsher to in order to make it seem like they are a harsh but fair company or just to generally keep a balance in order for it to not be too obvious. At the end of the day their opinion is up for auction to the highest bidder!
This brings up a legality question. Not sure if Canada has stolen property laws, but in the US this would tread that territory easily. It was on loan, not a gift or for sale.
I thought their review was way too harsh considering they didn't even have the intended GPU for testing, but I didn't know they sold it off. That is messed up.
Damn as a small business owner the waterblock part hit hard . I can’t imagine them seeing that video. They must of been so damn happy to get LTT to make a video and then they see what they did and never talked to them … wow.
Linus and his YT are a joke anyways. It's for entertainment, not value. And it took me a week of watching his videos to realize it's like listening to a Canadian Pee-Wee Herman half-ass product reviews. It's that obvious.
Yeah, the fact they even continued to record the video once they realised they didn't have the correct GPU (which Billet Labs had also sent them) was bad enough, but to then double down on their conclusions is unforgivable as these were all conscious decisions that they made and not just mistakes.
@@Farmer_G. I have a friend who works for a major player in the PC accessory market, and after LTT absolutely trashed one of their products, I reached out and was like, "WTF?" My buddy called me, said that they sent him the review product and worked with his team on some of the script (specs and stuff) in order to get an honest review... almost a year before the video was made. LTT/LMG apparently started demanding certain things, for the company to sponsor X number of videos at $X0,000 for the year, and they said "No, we can't do that." So, they released a really quick "review" where they simply called the thing garbage and told people not to buy it... and then listed one of the company's competitors as the sponsor for that "episode." Absolutely ridiculous.
How is that even legal? If the agreement was for them to review it and send it back, selling it seems like it should at least be illegal as it is proprietary tech.
It's not legal to sell someone else's property, but what are they going to do? They probably don't have the time or money to fight LTT in a court room which would take months to resolve. @woodcutta6461
What a tough position to be in for Steve and the Gamers Nexus team. Excellent job, as always, and I'm glad we have you as a pillar in our community. Steve and GN remind me strongly of John Bain "TotalBiscuit" (RIP) and his crusade against anti-consumer practices in the gaming space.
TB was a hero of mine. I had the privilege of speaking to him once when we were nobodies (and "we" was just me). It is an honor to be in the same sentence like that.
@@GamersNexus Keep making content and never change Steve, I work at a DevOps company in Bulgaria and you are very highly regarded among our team, even in a small country far away!
When I started watching LTT videos a few years ago they seemed accurate, clean, and believable despite being goofy (that's just his brand). Now all of those same qualities are eroding under the weight of the company trying to push out more and more videos to sustain itself.
You are clueless lol. Linus stopped being a real accurate tech channel around 2017 at the very latest all videos are just entertainment for zoomers with 1 tech item involved to still lie that they are in any way at all tech related.
They've given up their brand identity. Many years ago they used to be focused on smart consumer choices and getting the most bang for your buck. Now they're selling a 70 dollar screwdriver. It's an absolutely unreal out of touch price tag for a tool that you could spend less than half on and get a tool that'll last you for life from dewalt or Stanley. Imagine for a moment they were on the reviewing end of their own screwdriver 5 years ago. They'd be telling the creators to get fucked with a price tag like that
Have to agree with this. With how fickle consumers are these days, who knows just how many wrote them off completely and will NEVER give them a chance because of the classic saying "You never get a second chance at a first impression" and their first impression has been wrecked pretty hard, plus with their prototype being auctioned off that probably now is already at some fab being reverse engineered to be cloned. I wish them the best and hope they can recover in some way from this, perhaps at least on the part of not having card access GN might have some connections to possibly help them get a high end card like a 4090 or something for their lab to at least help with that, replacing that best sample prototype though is going to be hell.
Honestly, out of everything in this video this was by far the worst for me. They bashed a small company based on using it with the wrong product, kept the product so no other reviewers or media could also use and test, then turned around and stole an expensive prototype and sold it into the wild potentially for a competitor to buy. That is crazy.
LTT is good for entertainment but I always come here for the actual data. One of the problems that makes LTT videos go from mistakes to outright lying, is due to Linus being exceptionally prideful and believing he's always right about a certain topic, thus causing the whole Billet Labs debacle. LTT did them so dirty and honestly deserve to be sued for damages in this case.
A media group who still holds their friends to the same standard as everyone else. This is why Gamers Nexus is the best in the business. The quality and transparency of this team is simply magnificent!
The Billet segment was so hard to listen to because even someone with average usage and knowledge of computers can at least do the basics that were not followed from LTT.
They used to be friends, and now that LTT tries to branch out into serious hardware reviews with possibly the most ambitious review/database project ever attempted, they are competition and maybe even an existential threat. They weren't competition for GN, not really, but they will become competition now. With even more testing equipment purchases, a vastly bigger team and infrastructure and so on. I don't think this video would have been made if it weren't for that, so it's most likely not (only) out of the goodness of his heart and the purity of his conscience that Steve invested so much work into this material. Ultimately, it is good for consumers - accountability is good - but I must admit GN's attitude of moral superiority is a tad irritating to me. I'm not judging, I don't know how I would have behaved. Maybe this was the best decision possible.
The most baffling for me is the situation with the 3090 ti block. He refused to to get it tested on the correct GPU and then his argument is, he will not spend another "resources" to have it tested properly because no one should be buying this product. Then why even upload the false testing when they knew it has no value... And also who is he to say no one should buy the product, what people buy and what they dont buy is their own business. There are many enthusiants with deep pockets which would be willing to spend that kind of money on something unique, but why would they, when they dont even know how the block performs... And the audacity to auction the block when they were asked to give it back to the Billet Labs... That's just abysmal...
Sunk cost, he thinks, that because he spent time and people on that video he deserves to publish it (and make money ) even though he: a) openly states he did inproper testing b) fucks over startup c) obviously doesnt care about proper data d) fucks over startup again (WAN show "nobody should buy it") That just shows no remorse or intent to be factual.
Because he doesn't care. He is entertainer first and far behind actual tester. The reason being entertainment brings more money than reliability. Apparently not even the lab changes this
30:00 timestamp - and I agree. The only reason I can come up with is an attempt to downplay the consequences of their actions. > "It doesn't matter if our terrible video unfairly sabotages potential sales of this product...because no one was going to buy it anyways, so there!" _(It also implies that an accurate review would have come to the same negative conclusions as their inaccurate review, and therefore their mistakes shouldn't matter.)_ Although, he can't back up a descriptive claim about the future (like, "no one was going to buy it anyways")...so, he instead chooses the easier to defend prescriptive claim, framing it as his opinion that "no one should buy it." I doubt that was a conscious decision like I wrote it out, though - just something most people do naturally: phrasing their argument around what could be called their subjective opinions, vs. objective facts. (Especially when the "fact" is literally impossible to prove because no one can tell the future and Linus definitely can't reasonably claim to know for sure how many people might be interested in purchasing such a product from Billet Labs. ) /End ramble sorry lol 😅✌️
It's Linus Media Group now. This is no longer simply a guy who is passionate about hardware, informing his peers and fellow techies. This is a businessman who is passionate about making money. From my limited scope, I'm certain he is a reasonable (potentially great) person to work with and for, and I'm sure he's still quite passionate about tech. But the bottom line now is, well ... everything. When you make profit a priority, it doesn't just automatically make you a bad person, far from it. However, in my personal experience, it definitely makes one become more willing to let your ethics (and even morals) shift.
What they did to Billet Labs was just disgraceful, and highlights to me there's a fundamental problem with how the company's run. I haven't watched any of their content since I found out about it. Watching this vid, well wow, I can't trust any of their reviews, so that was a good decision on my part. Thanks for getting this out there.
LTT doesn't feel like a UA-cam channel anymore, it's just a corporation now. And for journalistic integrity, having cooperate connections isn't an asset, it's a drawback.
When Linus addresses this on WAN show, he better have already taken steps to rectify the situation with Billet Labs. That was beyond egregious, especially auctioning off the prototype.
That was probably a miscommunication between departments, but such a miscommunication is pretty bad. They really need to STOP GROWING and optimize their current size.
Even ignoring bad data, their way of "Just push out the video" drives me nuts. Projects that would have been that much cooler by taking the extra time seem to end in "oh well, could have worked if we just bought the right part." (For example, the latest pool heating video)
The half arsing some of their videos pisses me off, like wait a few days and get all the parts you need and the video will be that much more awesome but no, gotta pump those video numbers!
so many of their videos in the last year seem to have a lot of interesting build up, and then when I feel like I am about to get a really nice conclusion, the video is just over somehow. Endings always seem like an afterthought for them
@@coltonbyu as long as you made it to the end of the video and gone through a couple ads that they thrown in through the runtime... That's all Linus needs. Viewer count is their KPI, actually staying till the end is a bonus. NEXT!
I work too hard for my money and time to spend it in misrepresented parts. Thank you for bringing this to light...I have unsubscribed from Linus Tech Tips. They should be banned from UA-cam
The fact alone you don't monetize a +40 min video with LMG's test data deconstructed, which takes a lot of resources, shows how serious you are and not "just bashing on LMG". I think that viewers/fan/backers of both GN and LMG are gratefull for what you have set in motion here.
Companies like LTT usually have to pay five figure sums to a consulting company for feedback like this. It's insane how much Gamers Nexus has helped LTT with this video. And on top of giving free consultation TO THE COMPETITION he also disabled monetization. What a madman! 🌈
Baring in mind LTT then monetized their apology video with a bunch of gags about sponsors and reference to their store. Just speaks for itself and I was in disbelief that was the response.
I want to be very clear in that I am not defending LTT here, their behavior has been nothing short of wildly inappropriate with Billet and their employee treatment. That being said, I think it’s important to understand how much GN stands to benefit from this situation. Since this video was released they’ve gained nearly 100,000 subscribers. I believe this video is good journalism, and they’ve approached this very well, but I think it’s a slippery slope here. Creating pieces like this can be informative and honorable journalism, but it can also be a power grab if it’s overdone. Again, not accusing, I just think it’s worth being skeptical everywhere.
All "drama" aside, I REALLY like that an expert in the field is watching the same content audiences are and fact checking. Content creators are incentivized to make as many videos as possible, not make factual content. This type of video is one of the only ways anyone would know if LTT was lying or just wrong about something.
@@Pushing_Pixels I'd say it depends. If you're being "mostly" honest but cut corners to be faster it can feel like you're being efficient since no one is really calling you out and you're able to pump out videos really fast. UNTIL they are called out on it, it can build up the incentive to keep doing that. Posting often can help a channel gain quite a bit of money and viewers. Reputation IS a massive factor but until someone is like "hey, this might be an issue", there is am incentive to make content fast. Especially in topics that moves fast (drama, tech, news/journalism in general). Since if you post faster, there's a good chance people will find YOUR video first. I'd definitely say that not lying or being sloppy is the way better option, but I could also easily see why some channels get lost in making fast content rather than quality content. Its not good, but the incentive is there for some people (it just might bite you in the ass later). But there's also channels that don't suffer any real consequences from lying and making low quality content as well, so the intensive for them is huge.
The argument was that nobody was going to use an $800 product on a last gen card. So testing that would add no value for consumers. They also did say in the video that the product was not designed for the 4090. Maybe they should have stressed more that this data didn't mean anything because of that and was purely for entertainment. But it's also not like they were trying to hide this fact. They clearly stated it.
@@4203105You've copy-pasted this comment multiple time in response to others. You're really committed to astroturfing for Linus aren't you? And why wouldn't someone buy a fancy water block for a 3090Ti? It's hardly obsolete, and anyone who bought the card in the first place has discretionary income. Some of those people might want a premium water block (if it works properly on the card it's designed for).
Oh my god, that whole Billet labs situation just kept getting worse and worse. The language Linus used was so reckless and harsh, gosh I feel bad for those guys. That they would auction off a small company's prototype that they agreed to return, potentially putting it in the hands of a competitor, is absolutely insane.
I question if he auctioned it off for himself to steal the design. I guess if LTT ever presents a product anything close or exact to the prototype, would it be grounds for suspicion & to sue him? I wonder.
A multimillion dollar company refusing to spend less than $1,000 to retest a product for accurate results is wild. The way he said it makes it sound like he thought it was completely ridiculous to spend a few hundred dollars to do things the right way.
That would mean he couldn't make his heated floors be cooled floors next summer and a city where the average 2 bedroom condo is over 1M. So he needs every penny. To bad Canada stopped making pennies but that is good news for him because he is no longer getting copper posing from pinching them so hard.
Remember when he was justifying purchasing the stand for an apple computer at $1000 (since it didn't come with a stand for the monitor...) because it was a "small business expense compared to the cost of the computer"? Yeah, that was cringe back then, and even more so now.
Suggesting that a tentpole project that is meant to be "weird and unique" is a waste of money, while testing it incorrectly, and at the same time producing videos about $100k desks. It's massive hypocricy.
This was a difficult video to make. We ask that you listen to our concerns, commentary, and statements with an open mind. We would not have made this video if we didn't view it as important and necessary. Thank you. Update: Linus has posted a response. Here it is and here are our comments (you'll need to watch this first video before though to have the context): ua-cam.com/video/X3byz3txpso/v-deo.html
You guys are the best, I bet Linus is sweating reading these comments! GN has titanium balls.
(Edit: spelling)
I love this channel in the end when I want serious testing that is unbiased upfront and accurate I come to Gamers Nexus plain and simple. You guys do a great job keep hitting it out the park Gamers Nexus.
Phew, looking forward to how this plays out.
While you’re at it, I’d also like to know your take ok Hardware Unboxed.
I find them quite biased, pick and choose and high nosed.
Not reliable source for factual information but rather opinion pieces with a bit of test data here and there.
I 100% agree with your points and have been saying this for a while.
You would imagine that the personal relationships would cause you to keep each other more accountable.
Steve and crew, I waited to watch this video until after finishing my creative for the day so I could go into it with a clear open mind. As someone who has made many many mistakes and honestly am working hard to limit them as much as possible have to say that I genuinely appreciated your attention to detail regarding examples and the insight not only from your perspective and expertise but the insight presented in various clips from LMG... but also your offering of advice on how to be a better reviewer overall. As someone who simply cannot provide the level of detail that you do it gives me something to constantly strive for. I sincerely hope that LMG doesnt take this as an attack but a real eye opener on a broader problem they may not be as evident from their end.
As the Walmart Greeter to the tech world, Im glad you are managing the Service Department!
Lol, your Nvidia GPU advices are sooo much better...
Well said.
I really hope they take it as the wake up call that it is, reflect, and course correct. They can do it.
good reply jay, and youre a personal fav of mine.
The UA-cam tech side is just one big Walmart.
This is informative, and unfortunate
Would be interested in a video giving your thoughts on this situation, as long as you're open to making one of course!
The man himself!
If you ever decide to get a tatto, that should be it lol
It's truly a shame to see LMG falling so low.
Would be great if you could give your takes on this
The Billet Labs thing was vile. They didn't follow the instructions from BL, tested on a different card, and didn't contact BL before releasing the video. Then they publicly shamed BL for issues caused by LTT's own mistakes. And if that wasn't enough, they sold the prototype even though they agreed - twice - to return it. The whole "it was for charity" excuse makes it seem that they don't believe they can be held accountable for their actions.
I think a lawsuit would disagree with that "it was for charity" stance.
Time to recommend a few lawyers looking for an easy payout
@@inkredebilchina9699probably hard for a small company to come up with that kind of cash for a lawyer considering they just lost their product with all their hard R&D probably setting them back at least 6 months or more.
Sue there corporate ass
Ltts i don't need to look at the Manual attitude really needs to stop it's embarrassing
If I bought a new mouse, and felt the friction was bad... and then figured out there was a film that I hadnt removed, my first thought would be "I'm an idiot", not "why tf did they not tell me there was film?!"
Me after 2 years 😅
I’d bet they thought the same, because any sane human would. They were just trying to save their credibility
Agreed. Devil's advocate though, when the Fold 3 was released it had a screenprotector looking film over the big screen. Many owners tried to peel it off only to realize it's not a peel and ruining their screen.
LTT should have apologized, with the note that if they were that stupid, others could be as well and instructions or text on the plastic would make it clearer that it should be peeled off.
This isn’t drama or an attack. This is peer review. It’s necessary and professional.
@@huskers1278 the audiences already overlap.
Yep, its called Check and Balances.
Yup anything less but be encouraging unaccountability
@@huskers1278 One has a larger audience than the other, true, but there still is major crossover of audience already between the two content creators. I'm one of them, and if you read the comments, you'll see others are as well.
@@huskers1278Your point is so stupid. GN clearly made this video heavy harded and he said he didn't enjoy it. But for him we the consumers are the most important and thats why he needed to do this video. It feels so good still having reviewers like GN and HW unboxed. The only ones you can trust almost 100% Imao.
I'm long time LTT fan, and I fully support and agree with Steve. This is tough love, but this kind of video is exactly what the tech community needs. Constructive criticism and honest assessments push the industry forward and prevent companies from becoming complacent. Steve's willingness to speak his mind shows his dedication to the field and his desire to see it thrive. Keep up the great work!
This video is peer review at its best. No personal attack, only facts and the deep desire for everyone to be better - all for the consumer.
Just the kind of thing we need in this kind of industry, independent reviewers not only checking the manufacturers claims but also cross checking other reviewers to make sure no one is full of shit. It is kinda sad that it is necessary but misinforming the customers will only hurt the whole industry in the long term.
We DESPERATELY need more of these. It only benefits us as viewers/consumers
Which, TBF, is kinda GN's whole schtick. "Look, here's what we know about a situation/product. No unnecessary drama, very little opinion (and what opinion is provided is backed up with extensive experience and data), just what we know to be true about the situation at hand."
Of course, will people see it as such? Some will, for sure. Many, even. But there's bound to be that ever-vocal minority of fuckwits who just don't get it and need to make themselves heard.
Well we watched a completely different video. There was shade thrown through the entire thing and bitching about insignificant errors. Nothing in the test errors would have hurt the overall reviews and didn’t hurt any customer
@@Ttamlin The worst part of that ever-vocal minority is those who are currently absolutely raiding and dogpiling on LTT channels with non-constructive hate comments. It completely undermines the intentions this video. It's a bit of a shame that GN doesn't explicitly denounce and discourage such behaviour. Considering GN's attitude, they clearly don't endorse it.
the asterisk key at LTT is the busiest member of their staff
the asterisk key is LTT's equivalent to Chef Mike (Microwave) in Hells kitchen
It's a sticker on a keyboard! *not a sticker.
Their treatment of billet labs is absolutely unbelievable. Not only does it disqualify them from being taken seriously as reviewers. But the fact that they would sell their prototype after agreeing to send it back after spitting in their face...... That's insane
That should merit a lawsuit at the very least.
Theft and defamation
Indeed. I had not heard about that incident until this video. My mind is rather blown.
That's not insane... that's EVIL!!
If a competitor does bring a similar product to market based off reverse engineering the prototype they never should have had, LMG is going to pay out big time via lawsuit.
The Billet Labs story was devastating to hear especially as someone who knows first hand how giant companies stomp all over small startups trying to provide new innovative products. Linus’s casual dismissal of actually trying to properly test the product by saying “it’ll cost money” is the most asinine thing I ever heard.
the "it costs money" is always relevant, it being GN, LTT and especially small channels that dont have much to spend in the first place. if you dont consider the cost you wont make money wich means the channel/business cant exist.
@@SupremeRuleroftheWorldltt is not a small channel. Quit shilling ffs
I think the scarier thing is that they auctioned off an active prototype. Imagine this was a company like Nvidia or amd. There would be lawyers and lawsuits lining up left and right if they even remotely did anything even remotely close to what they did with billet.
The real problem there is the LTX auction of the Billet Labs prototype. All their time and effort could easily be for nothing if a larger competitor bought it and released a cheaper clone of it to market before BL could - especially considering the R&D cost that BL will have had to go through to get to that point. I could see that ending up in front a judge under loss of earnings, breach of contract and trade secrets issues depending on what NDAs etc were in place around the LTT testing piece.
He chose the Fast and Cheap options on the triangle...
This is a very much needed video to encourage Linus to face what he's been encouraging us to do for years. To call out companies for wrongdoing and misrepresentation.
Guy is an absolute hypocrite
Had not thought of the irony about it but it's damn true!
I knew that pitchfork I got on Prime Day would come in handy, I knew it 😡
But he doesn't want to spend time/money to undo their wrongdoing because 100, 200, 300, 400, or even 500$ to pay someone isn't worth their time.
You didn't find out his a hypocrite with the "trust me bro" shit
I love how on the WAN show even Luke was like “but……. Why didn’t you just test the block with the right……. Ugh whatever man”
He still thinks he's right on the backpack warranty too. Luke even pushed back again on the most recent wan show.
@@gagnarork Hold on, you missed an important key component. It wasn't that Luke disagreed with Linus, he disagreed with the way it was presented. Linus was right, he just marketed it wrong.
"I'm not willing to spend money to correct mistakes"
Mistakes cost money. You make a mistake, you should be willing to pay to correct it. If you can't afford it, do it right the first time. Some of these mistakes, I suspect, will eventually end in a lawsuit that they will try and crowd fund for.
I definitely see that happening. That and their whole trust me bro attitude towards everything reeks of supreme arrogance with the crowd. But given LTX sold out "whale" tickets at 10k a pop there are a lot more fools with money that would gladly help support him than not.
All that crap he said is just that, crap.
It's code language for I'm a POS and do not care.
It isn't about the money. Or the time. It's about just not giving a F and being terrible.
Linus is becoming the Apple of the tech journalism sector. They're more worried about the paintjob than the product.
Ironically these mistakes and the lack of correction will now cost him not just even more money but also his reputation.
@@Law0fRevengewe can only hope
LTT can't spend hundreds to correct a video but Steve can make and release a video that's gonna get millions of views and not even monetize it in any way and get paid for his bold efforts. Truly exceptional.
Ethics and Values are hard to find these days
He still getting money off the video you can’t demonetized a video
@@CR7Ashironaldothese UA-camrs make millions and millions of dollars ya know but you can’t demonize a video UA-cam doesn’t give you option when you upload video if it’s gets monetized or not I upload videos and get 1000s of views but they don’t do that so he still getting paid
@@JustinEdge-i3iwhat are you talking about? Turning off ads for a video is as simple as clicking a button in the upload page.
@@JustinEdge-i3imy guy, what in the world are you talking about. You obviously can remove advertisements on/from videos. Both by dodging a paid advert, and by disabling normal UA-cam ads.
2M + views in 24 hours is big. Steve solo writing, hosting, and editing so no one else on the team could be under fire is also exactly the type of move you want to see from a leader.
And not taking a cent for it either…
@@rogerfinch7651 But at the same time deserving all the donations from people here
@@rogerfinch7651you don't know that just because say something doesn't mean it's true
@@chriswright8074the video is not monetized and he didn’t do a sponsor. how could he be making money?
@@spitfire3311 He's making money from Super Thanks.
Going back and seeing ALL the crazy errors makes it so funny that Linus was basically like "Why couldn't GN come to my in private and tell me my entire lazy business model was constantly producing bad results?" As if he A responds well to Criticism and B would have actually changed anything after a private conversation with a smaller content creator he clearly does not like. Steven could have said all this in a text and or whatever Linus thought he was owed and Linus would not have changed shit.
Isn't that ironic that Linus wants criticism in private, but hates on Billet Labs without credibility
Was that Linus's response? That's embarrassing. Taste of your own medicine, as it were.
wait, GN and let aren't friendly? wow I really should've looked at that closer, I always assumed they both came from the ncix days.
Been watching LTT for about ten years. Went from learning to build my first PC from them to becoming a cpu design engineer at AMD. In the past year or so, I had felt like that content had started to go down hill, but couldn’t put my finger on what exactly. This video does a good job summing up information in the least inflammatory way.
#lmgcaneffrightoff
@toarocky do you work with the cpu's for the Frontier supercomputer?
What did you take at school to become a cpu design engineer? What masters?
@@burrybondz225 just have my undergraduate degree in electrical engineer
took the words right out of my mouth
As a fan of LTT, this video was a real eye opener for me. Thank you for your effort in holding the industry and community accountable. The Billet Labs situation is heartbreaking, and I hope they will be able to obtain some legal help to combat this injustice. You’ve gained my respect and I’ll definitely be tuning into your content more often.
They won't be able to afford legal help
based
Dear Billet Labs, if you'd like I'd be willing to help fund your legal battle. I can go without another fursuit for a while I think.
@@shocktnc True, but hopefully this’ll inspire a tech-passionate lawyer to take this on as pro-bono case.
Edit: I’m sure a good part of the community would be willing to help fund a lawsuit if Billet Labs would allow it.
I couldn't of said it better myself. I watch lmg videos daily, and even bought the screwdriver. I am extremely disappointed with lmg. I hope lmg can satisfactorily explain themselves, correct the situation, and get on the path of being the channels I remember them being. The rose color glasses have faded and i will be looking at lmg much more critically from now on. I think I will wait for an appropriate response from lmg before I watch their content again.
Linus Tech Tips made a massively erroneous video about antivirus vs anti-malware, claiming that anti-malware was something different you needed when in truth antivirus is simply an antiquated term that vendors use (even though every product is technically anti-malware these days). Not only that, they used this misinformation to promote a sponsored product under false pretenses, you needed this product because 'antivirus' wasn't enough. It was such B.S that I made a correction video and reached out to them to help correct the factual issues in that sponsored content, but they never responded and ignored our emails.
There is lots of misinformation in almost any sponsored video they make and almost all of them are sponsored.
Dang
Thank you, Leo.
Maybe if they responded to you, they might've been able to avoid being hacked like they did. 🤷♂️🤦♂️
Maybe that statement would have been more factual if the video was published in 1999.
I feel bad for Billet Labs especially...
They should sue, then Linus might rethink that comment about not wanting to spend that $500 to properly test the product and then AUCTION IT OFF.
GN always has my full respect for not being afraid of backlash or reprisal from any burnt bridges they make to reveal the truth to us all. Thank you for your constant great content.
You feel bad for them... o really? While displaying a hammer and sickle...? The symbol under which millions died. Please come out of whatever self-righteous hole you are in and check yourself.
and that's the Problem Sueing them will cost a Lot more then the Prototype and then there is no Guarantee you'd win and Lose even more Money and most Courts won't even touch a Case over $500
@@deltasixgamingIt's still just a civil action so it would qualify for being settled in a small claims court which, in most cases, is cheaper than a regular claims, high crimes court (still not a criminal proceeding).
@@jayviescas7703 there are a Lot of Factors like this is 2 Companies and what was sold was a Priceless Prototype, Honestly they should have noticed their Mistake and Found it then Bought it back and sent it back or they should have Sent back when they said they would which was Long before they sold it
@@deltasixgaming It's more than just property theft, it's that Billet Labs also faces future problems as a company due slander and libel from LMT's bad practices.
The billet labs situation sounds like a massive lawsuit to me. A company loaning a proprietary prototype under assumption and assurance of getting said prototype back. And then finding out, after 2 separate promises to return it, that it has been sold off on auction to a potential competitor?? Might be multi million dollar lawsuit.
Doubt they had a comprehensive legal framework signed being just 2 guys starting up less than a year ago, probably was sent on trust. Now they know.
Good thing that in civil court you don't have to prove anything, you just have to show that the damage to the brand/startup was likely.@@m4nt1c0r3s
Lawsuit? it's a crime. Given the value it likely has, it's a felony. They can sue and likely (depends on the state) is entitled to 3 times the value.
@@tarstarkusz it's not about the value of it, it's about the possibility it fell into the hands of the competition. all that R&D done, for nothing
@@m4nt1c0r3spretty sure they still have a case to be argued considering the fact that they have VIDEO EVIDENCE of them using the prototype, and not sending it back. Which at the very least they can argue that their unfair review dealt significant damage to their startup company
This viewer was a former Quality control Inspector and appreciates the work you put into every video. The drama is uncomfortable, but the truth is worth the pursuit.
It is unfortunate that this factual look at the failings of lmg is being framed as being UA-camr drama, as that makes it sound much more trivial than the situation actually is.
The truth hurts. But i think Linus isn't to far gone to take the pain and improve the situation instead of posting another meaningless statement in the LTT forums as a response to this.
uhh it is pretty trivial tho, like, its all still just tech review stuff@@SeithonJetter
@@SeithonJetterit is trivial. They are testing gaming pcs, not MRIs or Kidney Dialysis Machines. None of the errors changed the overall review of the items at hand
@@ryanwesneski5359idk if you’re being sarcastic but if you’re not, thank you for having some common sense.
I never looked at LTT as more than infotainment, but I never paid close enough attention to see how bad they actually are. Kudos for bringing up such an important issue in tech journalism despite how uncomfortable it must have been to do.
Yes, they do fun projects, but for getting real information HUB or GN (and many other smaller creators) are the better address.
There are only a few trustworthy channels, GN being one of them. That said, I think it's better people do their own research and not rely too much on any reviews or reviewers.
I think LTT do a fantastic job and I think gamers nexus is right to bring this up and address it I think we need to support them all
Sadly you kinda need to let go of that if you want the health of the PC community. LMG is like a gateway channel into the PC/tech enthusiast space. Meaning people see them as an authority and trustworthy. A channel will only have cause to improve if the audience leaves. Unsubscribe and tell youtube to not recommend their channels. That’s all we can do. If not, people will enter the space with bad information. IMO that’s worse than if they never get in at all. Unless you want to say that learning to recognize Linus’ BS is an important step in the community.
@@dog61 How, exactly, do you expect people to "do their own research" without "relying on reviewers"? Not everyone can have a team of experts and a backlog of hardware going back a decade to test every piece of hardware out there to compare and contrast the benefits and detractors.
Unless you mean for people aggregate their own data, average it, and then use that as a basis. Well, you're still relying on data from reviewers, just a lot more of them. And you're aggregating data that may not be compatible, thus causing more misinformation to be spread and used for purchasing decisions.
The billet shit is actually crazy; the trust they placed in LMG to do their job without a legally binding contract, just for them to irreparably and unfairly damage their company is saddening. I’ve been a long time fan of Linus, but to me, this incident alone is unforgivable, especially given his dismissal of people’s criticisms of the original review with “muh couple hundred buckerinos tho!”.
The irony of Linus admitting he would like more time to make quality content, and then actively denying someone that exact thing when requested.
I said NO! 😅😅😅
"But $100-500 is a lot of money guys, it would be a waste to go back and do things right!" -Multi-million dollar media company
Linus: “I need more time”
Employee: “can I have more time?”
Linus: “no get back to work pay is too expensive”
.
.
Also Linus: *renovating and kitting out his entire house with tech and latest and greatest gadgets*
@@Ravnican127 Recession hits everyone differently. I had to bang fat chicks for food stamps now.
Linus says whatever will play with people at any given time. He's become very good at currying sympathy from the people he's fucked over. The guy seems like a weasel.
Drama aside, I think it's important that competing reviewers hold each other accountable for the sake of the consumer.
Something that concerns me is that Linus's reply to this basically says "Steve didn't follow journalistic practices by contacting me and letting me rebut these claims before publishing". Does this mean Linus thinks "proper journalistic / professional practices" include notifying your buddies about something bad you discovered about them and let them downplay it before your piece even comes out? What school of journalism did Linus go to? He is confusing professionalism with buddy buddy relationships and perhaps that is permeating the entire structure of his organization.
@@johngoodman5094 Well in a lot of cases you do ask the entity you're writing about to make a statement just before you publish, to give them a chance to comment on allegations. Now it doesn't have to be that way, but in this case I probably would have said it would have been better had GN done it.
@@johngoodman5094on top of that, Linus doesn't follow any of those practices himself.
there is no drama
@MarNieCo maybe but did linus reach out before publishing the video on the water block? And if he thought the price was its big problem and no amount of performance improvement would change that stance why make a video on it at all? Also does he reach out to computer manufacturers before uploading his secret shopper videos? Same sort of journalistic coverage, does he give them a chance to defend themselves before posting a video putting them on blast for any number of reasons?
Its strange that they justify misinformation by saying "nobody should buy it anyway" like that's LTT's choice to make.
TBF saying nobody should sounds more like opinion than making a choice for someone, sure as big as linus is his word is influential. that being said misinformation isnt a good look either
Regaurdless of if someone will buy it, they clearly built it as a marketing tool for their other products. It's kinda like when an auto manufacturer builds a crazy concept car and has reviewers to look at it and show off their capabilities. Testing the product incorrectly defeats the point of the entire exercise.
@@parker73724they are clearly skilled guys looking at what they made, so this could ruin their whole business down the road.
@@theconsigliere8463 His opinion is what people base their purchases on. He is not like you (a rando on the internet) whos opinion people have 0 reason to listen to let alone allow it to impact them.
@@theconsigliere8463 I don't know, if as soon as you don't see value in one thing you immediatly go into "nobody should buy this" mode (especially given how stubborn Linus is), I find this to both be the less nerdy and most self-centered approach. The tech hobby would also be really boring.
This video popped up on my feed, courtesy of UA-cam's algorithm. Wow... after watching twice, I can tell that this was a difficult video for you to make. Calling out your peers when they are doing a disservice to your community is never easy thing to do. I deeply admire your tactful and very well-spoken coverage of this story. At all times, you strived to be respectful and fair to LMG while providing honest and informative coverage for your viewers. Bravo, sir!! I've subscribed, and look forward to working my way though your catalog of excellent videos. Keep up the excellent work. 👍
I dont care if I've been a linus fan for a long time, accountability is important. thank you for bringing this to light.
Agreed the bullet labs thing made me unsubscribe.
You could've done a lot better with $20 than giving it to a corp
@@iceman5117 What he does with his money is his business. Even if he wants to support Kayne it has no affect on you.
@@iceman5117, bruh, you mad that Linus got a reality check? The whole tech community is better for it. I watched Linus for almost a decade and having him slip into disinfo and butthurt takes when people call him out is heartbreaking. Linus was supposed to be one of the trusted sources and now he started turning into what we hated about tech UA-cam back in the day. He should be thanking Steve and not butthurting over his faults that affect countless consumers.
@@jiri-one I don't care about Linus in the slightest
Selling the cooling block without consent and potentially giving it too their competitor all the while they sent it too you in the first place under good faith is such a deep cut. They just killed someone else's idea and potential lively hood because they couldn't be fucked giving a damn.
It was a crap move, after berating them (and not testing properly) they sold it off to a 3rd party who would / could clone it.
Sounds like an easy lawsuit if they kept receipts. Linus really fucked up hardcore.
@@burrfoottopknotThey sold someone else's intellectual property. That could, and should, be costly.
Extremely surprised that such things happen. Ok I guess for a normal series product but for a prototype.....
100%! Bad move LMG
The timing on this video is really interesting since Linus just talked about, on the LAN show, how content creators don't get held accountable for unethical behavior because their fan base enables them to live in their own little echo chamber.
Incredible. And what does he do when called out? Runs to his echo chamber, doubles down, and plays victim. Talk about a lack of integrity
i mean he already pulled linus on their forum saying that the video is right but that is not that bad. he says they havent sold the prototype but auctioned it off for charity, as if that would be any better.
@@chasedooley6237Narcissists are experts at spotting the flaws that they are themselves guilty of.
@@Ginkoman2 A very Linus answer. Thing is still gone regardless, don't know why he thought it'd make a friggin' difference *how* it was sold off.
@@Ginkoman2 thats still stealing and selling it ?
It's like LTT/LMG have gone "The Verge" route...
that's not good.
We can't antagonize videogame companies for releasing unfinished products (which we are justified to do) while accepting LMG releasing unfinished and known erroneous tests. Creators like GN have shown you can be ethical and thorough, we must demand better.
Everyone and every company has or will make mistakes, some of them not so serious and some are. You shouldn't be judged for those mistakes but how you respond to them and so far LTT has a pretty good reputation for response time and quality.
@@DiustheZLinus' response on the LTT forums (coward) has been nothing but smells just like the typical letter that a huge AAA studio puts out after a bad release, "we're just a small indie dev studio bro", "I hope Steve can stop his bitching and come back into the Team Media fray"
Fck the guy and his ego
@@DiustheZ that’s funny lol
@@DiustheZYou missed the part where IT WASNT A MISTAKE. HE KNEW IT WAS WRONG AND DID IT ANYWAYS.
Did you even know what happened? LOL
This is stupid statement, you can, and should.
Much respect. Integrity can cost a lot. A lack of it can cost everything.
Well said 👍
Just ask Noah Kats from Artesian
GREAT QUOTE
With journalistic integrity as a whole dying pretty much everywhere, we really appreciate your work here. Thanks
As not super tech person, I will never build my own pc. Some of nexus stuff goes over my head. So i sometimes watch other people. But nexus always summeries and trys to make it clear on what the average person should steer towards and trust the graphs that nexus puts up. Appreciate you guys, steering clear of ltt forever.
The most impactful thing from this video to me was the whole billet labs water block situation, it actually breaks my heart
I wonder what will stop them putting in a complaint for something like corporate espionage
Yeah that was slimy and tough to see
That was pretty much an execution without fair trial, absolutely insane. I went into this controversy with the "people make mistakes" mindset but this is hard to explain with that.
They sold it on an auction, that was so disrespectful
This was the part that sticks. Never heard of the company but the idea looks interesting.
Linus' statement he is not willing to spend 500 dollars to not destroy someone's business is just disappointing.
$500 is most likely pennies for them given the amount of money they spend on products in videos _and_ the videos themselves.
@@filip9587 It is, but that kind of "cheapskate" behaviour is also one of the ways they've been able to grow so large as to spend so much on videos in general. The money they haven't spent on being more thorough instead gets spent on growth.
Meanwhile, stealing and reselling their best prototype.
Big brain time.
Not returning the prototype is actually just straight criminal lol, agreeing to return it then failing to do so is promissory estoppel at the least.
His character has been obvious since the all in one watercooling thing. He could have bought airconditioning so his staff didn't have to work in an extremely hot envrionment, but instead he tried to do it on the cheap and also make content out of it. His solution would never work.
One of the biggest double downs I've ever seen was on a WAN show episode where Linus misspoke and said 108060p. Instead of just saying he misspoke he dug his heels in and went on a tangent about how he's correct.
Luke is such a decent dude and recognises so many of these problems, and Linus just keeps steamrolling him any time he tries to bring it up or defend the criticism on the WAN Show. I genuinely feel for him.
Linus' credibility was dead to me when he was dumb enough to put his companie's work on a massive RAID0 and then happily make a video about trying to recover it when it had a failure because there was no recent backups of it.
Luke is often the moral compass on the show which makes it disappointing when he gets steamrolled.
luke should work for GN ;)
Now Luke is being boned because I'm watching as Floatplane subscriptions are dropping.
Luke is cringe AF
I honestly come to GN for in-depth analysis. This is probably the only channel that goes into a deep dive on all products they review. Thank you GN for everything.
Bravest review of a reviewer I’ve ever seen. You guys keep speaking truth to power. You’re doing more than just correcting an injustice. You are setting an example for others in a world increasingly focused on profit maximization at all costs. Kudos!
I'm a huge LTT fan, probably my fav UA-camr group. But these errors in videos have been getting more and more frequent lately. Great job to the GN team on making this video to highlight these to the community and LMG. Hopefully LMG does the right thing and takes on this criticism, take a step back, slow down if required and release content that is thoroughly scrutinised internally before publishing.
I agree. They've gotten to big to fast. Linus isn't able to stay on top of things like he used to. He basically shows up, entertains and leaves to the next project! No in-depth thought is given, no time. Finnish the video and move on to the next one.
i've stopped watching linus around 2years ago. sorry to say but LTT has no educational content anymore, but GN has it.
I think the ownership of LTT is already so far into buisness side of things - commercialization and expansion, that there is no return from here. It will only get bigger and more focused on commercial entertainment like some tech department of a big publisher. In other words - LTT is going mainstream.
Same here, I like them but many of these are apparent. Especially the fixes through annotations, I'm really not sure if there was a video for a long time now, that did not have any. And Short Circuit for me is in clear opposition to the very idea of Labs. I was posting negative comments under many videos on Short Circuit because they tend to spew complete lies or push some weird personal opinions.
And Linus himself clearly grew too big, but very fortunately he gets it and he hired someone to be the ceo he cannot.
I've noticed that over the last couple of years LTT seems to be moving further and further away from serious review and more and more toward being an entertainment channel. I get it. Entertainment is where the most money is but they're still purporting themselves to be a serious channel so it definitely has the potential to be problematic.
It was especially strange after they advertised themselves with the new lab what they are working on.
Agreed 100% with your entire comment.
I've noticed that too.
Its always been entertainment
Linus focused on engaging nerdy entertaining shit with access to latest tech. You would go to other channels to find the intricate nerdy specsheet stuff cause ltt didn't focus on that anymore
I find it more atrocious ppl attacking ltt in these comments as if they're some big bad corpo doing this on purpose
its more that they've grown such a huge influence they need to take their QC more seriously than ever
@@Ordo1980but its not fully finalised. This al reads to me as they started up labs and haven't refined their QC enough
Doesnt excuse the errors but its not malicious or anything
@@furythree They ARE doing it on purpose. Have you seen the interviews? They ALL know it, even Linus himself. Knowing there's a problem and not fixing it (when the fix is quite obvious) means you keep doing it on purpose.
How the hell do you notice that your mouse is resisting movement too much and not immediately go to check weather there is something stuck to the bottom? There are no excuses for that, its just plain bad production quality, a 15 yo timmy that spent the previous 16 years of his life watching tiktoks and ruining his attention span would pay more attention to this
A 15 yo that has spent 16 years watching tik toks? Does he have a time machine? Have you ruined your attention span being a dumbass?
The Billet Labs situation is simply inexcusable. Like I can let a lot of other stuff slide, but they not only screwed up the testing and refused to acknowledge it, they illegally sold the prototype.
And acted like total pricks on top of that.
WTF is the deal?
Yh this is the most egregious to me, Linus can be a prick, (like any of us tbf) and he's quite stubborn sometimes, (again also true of myself) but this one he needed to reflect and for some reason couldn't obviously more to this story
Agreed - I don’t care how much it costs, they need to get the block back. If the block landed in the hands of a competitor or malicious Chinese product cloning company… holy shit, they’re in hot waters.
LTT is the company who often says "We like there to be more competition" ... but new startups pop up and get broken down like that. I really wished they would have taken proper time to make the video with the gpu it was intended for and gave that company more of a fair shot.
To be fair Linus has responded directly saying this was an accident and they weren't aware that the company wanted the part back and will pay them for the agreed price of the prototype.
It's Linus's true colors on display for all to see. This isn't new, but now it's just gotten way more serious. You can be a moronic asshole when it's just "for entertainment", but if you're doing legit reviews, that shit won't fly and can get you into real legal trouble.
The stuff with Billet is actually so incredibly fucked up
To have their prototype grossly misrepresented, slandered based on that misrepresentation and then to have their best prototype essentialy stolen and completely fucking up their R&D is honestly beyond words. LTT legitimately deserve to be sued for that
It could even be criminal.
Do note however. That although it's claimed that the company communicated the theft. No evidence is shown for this
I was thinking the same thing, absolutely disgusting and I won't be watching anything coming from LMG again.
Good luck as a start up suing a $100million company.
@@DragonNexusand that's the most fucked up thing in all of this.
Holy crap the situation with Billet labs is insane. Horrifying how terribly Billet labs were treated hope things have turned around for them.
holly s*** that was infuriating to say the least...was bad enough to test the thing wrong but sold a prototype without any permission to potential competition...what the actual fu**!
LMG should be charged with theft
Why tf would they sent their "best" prototype, sounds like a dumb move.
@@Kytori95Why WOULDN'T you send your best prototype? Who the heck would send their 2nd best prototype to be tested by a big reviewer?
@@Kytori95 if your product is going to be reviewed by a large tech outlet, and that is the most publicity that your small startup is going to get, it wouldn’t make sense for them to send a sub-par prototype for review, no? Given LTT’s general reputation and size, I’m sure they trusted them to handle their prototype with care, and not do something like “auction” it away lol
Reminder that linus isn't a tech guy, he was a computer salesman with video experience who started critically assessing technical details. He doesn't understand most non-gaming-set-up hardward in context, his entire experience is in doing benchmarks and playing games. And LTT copies that infantile lack of knowledge.
I remember his NCIX videos. Man how time flies.
Insane that Linus admitted that a few hundred bucks kept them from doing a proper test
THAT blew my mind. They're apparently a properly large company that does a lot of work in the tech sphere. Linus is rich enough that he invested $200,000 of his own money in a company. He was unwilling to invest at most $500 to properly test something, which is what his company was built on. And the thing is, it's the company's money he's talking about, and that I'm sure has even more money in its budget than his personal finances.
I've worked for shows with low-to-mid 6-figure annual budgets and they've been more willing to spend $500 on things to get stuff right.
It likely had more to do with the production schedule or not wanting people to work OT to redo the shoot and some company policy associated with OT. I'm sure he phrased it about as poorly as possible which is his MO.
I think he was more implying that he feels the product is so worthless that spending any more time and money on it would be impossible to justify. If they messed up the numbers for a major Nvidia drop, they'd absolutely pay to re-test. Problem is, Linus was in no position to judge the quality of the cooling block because they tested it wrong in the first place.
@@davidhickey8613 That doesn't make any of it any better in any way
Bro easily spends a small fortune on an industrial climate controlled temperature stress test chamber, but won’t drop a few hundred on properly testing a prototype product without fucking it up 💀
MY heart sank when I heard that they auctioned off the prototype of the cooling block. A small company can die with mishaps that they had no control over and communicated several times that the protype needed to be sent back.
Only for it to end up in a new gpu design in a couple of years🙃
that would have been their right to do ... linus tech tips is shit. glad i stopped watching years ago
@@letmelick
@@letmelick Probably ASUS....
@@letmelick yup. It seems the inventory control system if one exists at LMG seems to hapzard at best with no one logging whether products are loaned out and returned etc no chain of custody so to speak. The requirement of the block being returned should of been included in this inventory control system. When an item is destroyed or sold that item should be removed from the inventory control system and should of raised a Red flag and prevented that item from leaving LMG possession and being auctioned off.
I hope nobody trusts LMG for reviews ever again. Itll just be the companies they have connections with and then they will become a meme.
The way this video has blown up in just 24 hours tells me this is something the community felt / was aware of in varying degrees but couldn't quantify. You've laid it all out here. Thank you.
People love drama too, I'm also grabbing the 🍿 lol
@@evaone4286I'm a sucker for drama.
The community response (at least from the LTT sub-Reddit) seems to be mostly in agreement with the video. It seems like something like this was a long time coming.
Anybody who has ever watched any of LTTs "projects" could tell you this was coming from a million miles away. For having so many engineers on staff now there really is no excuse for having such terrible quality engineering solutions for *ALL* of their projects, unless they are only hiring engineers that no engineering firms would touch. They have turned it into a joke now about how bad all of their projects are, but that's just embarrassing when they have literally never made ANYTHING that is actually impressive.
It’s not that big of a deal you guys are just crying over nothing
I know I’m late to the party, but this was my first watch through of this video and wanted to add my long story. I got into PC building because of LTT and still really enjoy their material as an entertainment company. When I first heard of this controversy, it sounded like mostly UA-cam drama and I never watched this video and hadn’t watched this channel previously. As a biology researcher, I really appreciate your point about the data and testing inaccuracies. As a consumer, it is important to know the accurate data or components along with the real world application. I appreciate your informative take, even when it includes people that you have a personal relationship with. I still really enjoy LTT content and believe that there are many intelligent people working there and hope that this whole situation helps the company improve internal business practices. I won’t pretend to understand the business of a media group, but for me the key fact is that if you position yourself as a reviewer offering data driven reviews the data should be accurate and the test methods flushed out. I know the growing pains of a young lab and this conversation is important. Thank you for your willingness to have this difficult conversation. Subscribed.
My biggest issue with Linus is his refusal to accept criticism. He will certainly talk about this on the WAN show. He will also certainly say something along the lines of "I get what Gamer Nexus is trying to say, BUT." He'll then discredit the video and take zero ownership.
Cant wait to see what hes got to say about that...
Word
I bet he makes a whole standalone video on this.
Especially with the likes this is gathering, and some of the tech names popping up in the comments.
He already has a lengthy post responding on the ltt forum, if you care to find it.
@@Grumbo91it is not good, is it? Oh god...
As a huge LTT fan. This video was sorely needed and professionally brought attention to stuff i didnt even notice. Ive felt something has been off with ltt but paid no mind. Stellar video.
agreed, especially the billet situation is INSANE to me and Billet should definitely take legal actions against LMG for selling their prototype aswell as slander chargers for knowingly using their product incorrectly.
I go to them for entertainment, not objective data.
I think they put too much effort into appealing to a younger crowd (no problem with that at all), and trying to get involved in WAY too many things... Selling tons of merch, expanding the test lab, the company has rapidly expanded rather than matured and gotten better in what they do, if you get what I'm saying.
i have been an LTT fan for some time and its hard to see that it feels like a Rooster teeth event about to happen..
Linus is a total fraud and always has been. Watch his first year of videos. Total joke. He started as a clueless little spoiled rich kid who thought he could show off his “knowledge” of the stuff daddy bought him.
I just don't understand how they auctioned off a prototype. That has to be illegal, it was never theirs. And to think a competitor may have bought it...
Linus' attitude for the guys who made this prototype watercooling system is just outrageous.
Massive ego
Yeah, especially them selling THEIR prototype. That's just bs, they trashed them and made Money out of it
Not defending the situation because Steve is still correct, however he did cut out the reason why Linus said that, which was due to the price alone. He stated that regardless of outcome, the “conclusion” would be the same because the cooler was something like $800, thus doesn't make sense to buy other than for looks. They then went on a rant about if pricing can make something a bad product, that's where Luke's comment came from.
I do wish that bit was left in for context, however yes I do agree the situation to begin with was stupid.
This doesn’t even get into how that prototype got auctioned, which is actually appalling. In this I am only offering context for people to inform their own opinions with. You could watch that segment of the show if you want the entire context, I would suggest people do that in order to inform themselves further. I suspect your opinions won’t change (as mine has not), but being fully informed is always better than not.
@@tomaszzalewski4541*for charity but sure
I'm a huge fan of LTT and that one was especially hard to watch. Super disrespectful and unprofessional. They should track down whoever bought it and pay them whatever they want to buy it back so they can return the property that was never theirs.
They used to be decent but I noticed the quality dipping around the time they started with the reaction image thumbnails. If a channel has to resort to gimmicks, it tends to mean their content alone isn't quality enough to draw attention.
The odd thing about them raffling off the Billet Labs prototype is in the latest WAN show, Linus was complaining about someone giving out their prototype LMG backpack as he said it's a "misrepresentation of the product" and can damage their brand if someone who gets that prototype thinks it's the actual product. lmao
Linus and bad takes, name a more iconic duo. The guy lacks some supreme self awareness.
Lie-nus Hypocrisy Tips
I think what's even worse is the Billet Labs prototype possibly being sold to a competitor
Linus potentially ruined the lives of the founders of a small startup because he is a monster. The fact he is so flippant about protecting his own bottomline while costing other people theirs, is just disgusting.
While his take with the prototype on the video was horrible and harmful for no reason, the act of selling it was an extreme case of stupid and carelessness - I wouldn't call that act "evil". But don't be mistaken, as it is still inexcusable for such sloppiness to occur.
This video is why I immensely respect Steve and GN. I hope the LTT crew sees this video with an open mind and accepts it as constructive criticism, as I take that it is meant to be. Good work.
did you see Linus' response on HIS forum. He basically bashed Steve and GN and said you shouldn't have done this.
He won't. Linus won't take any of the valid criticism and work to improve it. This is probably going to get really ugly fast. Let's make sure we support GN and show Linus that we demand integrity from tech review channels.
Definitely not gonna happen.
Supposedly after this L took another L.
Linus is a sociopath, so no, no he won’t apologize or improve
INDICATIVE OF CURRENT C0REPOO0TOCRACY ERRODING SOCIAL VALUES
I was expecting some mild criticisms, but this is pretty devastating, especially the Billet issue. Really maddening how they can so blithely destroy a new company's reputation for the sake of saving a few hundred dollars, then pocketing their one-of-a-kind product to sell to (literally) the highest bidder. Sad state of affairs.
I dont think it was a matter of paying an employee. I think if Linus admitted to the wrong doing, it would do more damage, so he was looking for an out so to speak. And selling the prototype? Makes zero sense considering how much money that company brings in. It's baffling that they sold the prototype.
@@thecasualcanuck4590I suspect that it has less to do with the money and more with the prestige of having this one of a kind, super special thing to sell. "Look at how cool I am, I have this thing that nobody else has to flog to the highest bidder."
@@ShroudedWolf51 that kind of makes sense too.
Not defending selling it when it was asked for but they weren't pocketing the cash it was a charity auction for BC children's.
@johnmarhefka4794 I mean, they could have just donated the money lol. Selling someone else's property really doesn't look good for anyone. And plainly donating the cash would have made a better impression I would think
I managed the AMD test lab for years ,all I can tell you is, it is your job you are right and every product you receive should be thoroughly tested. Reviews/specs should be repeatable. Managers, directors and marking will drive you as hard as they can until your show reflects it. DONT NOT let them push you. Remember your audience, don't be a tec target. Kudos to you sir for standing for your principals
I'm not used to seeing this much integrity in tech reporting these days, you guys are amazing.
Good tech channels are far too rare, the largest tech channels are far from good.
Quite many things are taken out of context here, but I sure am waiting for LTT's response, especially surrounding the billet lab's stuff.
@@propellergarageall of the errors in data, removing plastic film on mouse feet, and selling a prototype is taken out of context huh?
@@MinamiX3 I don't care much about errors in data, nobody in their right mind would trust YT video for such data, and it's plenty good enough for quick heads up on how stuff compares.
Mouse feet fiasco was acknowledged prior to this video coming out.
Billet labs stuff is problematic but as far as I understand from LTT forums, it has been already resolved prior to this video coming out. A lot of Linus's comments about the Billet lab's is taken from context and it is obvious he is talking about the product not making any sense financially no matter the performance, and those people that would want it wouldn't judge it on performance basis anyway.
Funny how when I hear GN I first thing I think about is what new drama there is, very on brand.
Oh, and I don't care about LTT anyway, I don't really watch their content apart from listening to WAN show. And fuck them for showcasing Russian war criminal's products in their recent short circuit.
Despite that, this GN video is just drama seeking .
I love Gamers Nexus for calling out the nonsense no matter who the perpetrator is. One of the most genuine groups of reviewers/content makers for any field.
The billet labs chain of events was infuriating to watch. Can't believe they were that irresponsible with a startup's prototype.
I feel sorry for Billet Labs
#Justiceforbilletlabs
I think we should hold our horses on that story, who would just send away their irreplaceable prototype without which you can't continue product development to some youtuber (even a big one).
Not having the proper legal contracts and such I can see at a small 2 person company but from a engineering side you never ever let someone film your prototype unless you got the patents and everything and much less you're giving it outhouse. (unless you're super desperate for some funding and your project is basically dead in the water)
Chill, they got cash, but GN "forgot" to mention it due to their amazing "investigative" journalism @@Itzryan288
@@kunicrossgaming Bro, stop victim blaming, try to think if a big brand like Asus give Linus their $1000 GPU for them to test I would doubt his team would trash talk it after doing a faulty product representation then sell it away. What Billet Labs should have done should not be the center of discussion, what Linus has done should be.
Couldn't spend $500 more for accuracy but drops $100k+ on compensator videos
Your journalistic integrity is what makes this channel outstanding and drives millions of people to listen and value your words.
Yet he didnt speak to LTT before publishing... That is not journalism - that is clickbait.
@@acu01136Umm no
@@acu01136 Clickbait would mean that the title or imagery is sensationalized to provoce higher throughput. This is not the case, when you watch the video. Points ARE being made against LMG and substantiated with proof. You could say this is spicy, but what you see is in fact what you get here.
@@NecroknightZ Ok, just ignore his main argument (no asking for statement beforehand) and go for the easy one.
@@nRumbaIIwhen you ask for their statements, they'll lie and change the narrative beforehand like what Linus tried to do anyway with Billet labs, saying they already compensated them, when they in fact haven't.
No words can describe the anger and disapoinment I felt when hearing about Billet Labs' waterblock. I can't begin to imagine how those guys felt..
Yea I honestly surprised really hoping this won't shut them down just because of laziness or incompetence
Linus did say they compensated them, but there are some things money can't replace, especially prototypes.
This is the first I've heard of it. I'm flabbergasted. Are there any legal actions they could take as, I would assume, that was their proprietary IP? LMG should be held accountable for their actions, it's shocking
@@filip9587 Not to mention the harm to their reputation due to a lazy and incompetent review no "token" figure of compensation can fix that. If it was in the US they'd be able to sue for "punitive" damages and probably win given the situation.
@@filip9587especially since there were people from other companies there that specialize in coolers.. they may have sold off a prototype that wasn’t their property to a corporate rival. Insanity
I feel so sorry for Billet Labs. I really hope they can proceed with their project and someone more responsible gets to take a look at their product. I would like for this to be examined a bit more. If it all happened as described, all companies sending their sensitive equipment to LTT should think twice about doing so.
I feel that this now should be taken to legal, Billet labs should be suing LMG for breach of contract, loss of earnings, theft and misrepresentation, Linus thinks too much of himself, I have given up with their channel ever since they started the Labs project, it's just an 24/7 display of turd polishing. If someone doesn't go legal against them soon then that will show how weakly the tech industry responds to reviewers who do not even know what they are looking at or are willing to fulfil an agreement which could destroy a company.
Yup for me personally it made the product look terrible and bordering a scam. Definitely did immense damage to their product.
Linus breaks expensive things all the time it's the big risk letting him touch your prosuct
LTT has and aways will be the most mainstream outlet for tech related videos. They constantly sacrifice valuable information as a result of their rushed video production and light tone, and I rarely feel satisfied after watching their videos as a result.
@@elementary7283there's a difference between making a mistake on your own expense and someone else's. Even more ridiculous is selling the product which you don't own and has been explicitly asked back for.
Linus's comment about not spending a few hundred bucks on Re testing the water block is nothing short of spitting in the face of both Billet Labs and LTT viewers, that was truly offensive and revolting.
Thank you for being frank with the community. Nobody is immune from criticism and feedback like this makes the community better!
he is steve ... not frank
I just hope Linus takes the criticism positively, he seems like one the only people on this platform able to take a big L and still be cool about it
(hopefully not making a clingy UA-cam apology video, I think those are a bit different cuzz they come off as just damage control rather than self improvement)
@@climatixseuche is this Krusty Krab?
@@tram1839 Ahh, I feel like that is exactly what will happen unfortunately, I've followed him seldomly before and his podcasts... it seemed like he got burned out, and lost passion for his work, and simply put, just doesn't enjoy doing it anymore, hence why he was stepping down. And if there's no passion like in case of LTT, and you are just doing for the money then the quality of the content is bound to take a deep dive... and there's no1 to replace him at the LTT unfortunately. It honestly feels the exact same way like Buzzfeed to me...
@@korana6308no this is patrick
The Billet Labs bit was absolutely outrageous. How on earth can Linus defend selling someone else's prototype despite agreeing twice they'd return it?!
I don't really care much for technology, but how this startup was treated is unfair and highly pretentious, it reeks of privilege. I find it offensive. It's time for some humility. They should change their ways. Steve is really some consumer advocate. A real honest video.
Selling someone else's prototype after absolutely demolishing it in their video for its "worst value" and then doubling down on their mistake is just scummy.
@@gramma677 That throwaway comment was just further evidence of a bad attitude on the part of one member of Labs. The real mistakes were in the terrible test results which were portrayed as accurate despite being fundamentally flawed. Deliberately putting out videos based on the shoddy testing and causing viewers to make misguided decisions about significant purchases is just unprofessional, for any tech channel and especially one with such a huge following.
It's disgraceful, especially for a small company trying to make quality products, then Linus butchers the whole thing, doubles, then triples down saying a Multi-Million dollar company can't be bothered to use the right GPU and it may cost him $100-$500 to rectify it, no ethics there and blatant disregard for Billet Labs that could seriously damage them financially. Shame on LMG.
Ooh the average Linus stan
The auctioning of the watercooling prototype had my jaw on the floor. That's utterly insane. I doubt they'll ever get cooperation from startups after this (unless like framework Linus owns a stake in them).
this is an interesting point I imagine GN likely would have wanted to cover if they felt they could- it's clear LTT at this point will only publish positive reviews if there is profit in it! everything else they will be more inclined to be harsher to in order to make it seem like they are a harsh but fair company or just to generally keep a balance in order for it to not be too obvious. At the end of the day their opinion is up for auction to the highest bidder!
Lol don’t get ahead of yourself. Companies can get huge exposure from them.
This brings up a legality question. Not sure if Canada has stolen property laws, but in the US this would tread that territory easily. It was on loan, not a gift or for sale.
I thought their review was way too harsh considering they didn't even have the intended GPU for testing, but I didn't know they sold it off. That is messed up.
@@magsec5 Does it matter if your tech literally GETS STOLEN BY THEM?
Luke is the GOAT. Luke is and always has been the voice of reason.
Hopefully homie has landed in a better situation
Damn as a small business owner the waterblock part hit hard . I can’t imagine them seeing that video. They must of been so damn happy to get LTT to make a video and then they see what they did and never talked to them … wow.
Yeah that shook me. I actually was mouthing to my self oh my god that’s messed up.
Linus and his YT are a joke anyways. It's for entertainment, not value. And it took me a week of watching his videos to realize it's like listening to a Canadian Pee-Wee Herman half-ass product reviews. It's that obvious.
Yeah, the fact they even continued to record the video once they realised they didn't have the correct GPU (which Billet Labs had also sent them) was bad enough, but to then double down on their conclusions is unforgivable as these were all conscious decisions that they made and not just mistakes.
@@Farmer_G. I have a friend who works for a major player in the PC accessory market, and after LTT absolutely trashed one of their products, I reached out and was like, "WTF?"
My buddy called me, said that they sent him the review product and worked with his team on some of the script (specs and stuff) in order to get an honest review... almost a year before the video was made. LTT/LMG apparently started demanding certain things, for the company to sponsor X number of videos at $X0,000 for the year, and they said "No, we can't do that."
So, they released a really quick "review" where they simply called the thing garbage and told people not to buy it... and then listed one of the company's competitors as the sponsor for that "episode."
Absolutely ridiculous.
Yeah that's what bothered me most. It really sucks. They have always seemed to be better. I hope they can figure stuff out and bounce back.
The fact they sold a small company's best prototype just breaks my heart
It made me unsub from them
How is that even legal? If the agreement was for them to review it and send it back, selling it seems like it should at least be illegal as it is proprietary tech.
I'm a big fan of LTT but they just opened themselves to a rightful lawsuit. Sad to see this happening.
It's not legal to sell someone else's property, but what are they going to do? They probably don't have the time or money to fight LTT in a court room which would take months to resolve. @woodcutta6461
@@woodcutta6461it isn't but Billet Labs looks too small to afford to fight LMG.
What a tough position to be in for Steve and the Gamers Nexus team. Excellent job, as always, and I'm glad we have you as a pillar in our community. Steve and GN remind me strongly of John Bain "TotalBiscuit" (RIP) and his crusade against anti-consumer practices in the gaming space.
sometimes i wonder what he would think if he saw us now.
TB was a hero of mine. I had the privilege of speaking to him once when we were nobodies (and "we" was just me). It is an honor to be in the same sentence like that.
@@GamersNexus It's well deserved! You are an important cornerstorne (is that the right word in english?) of the community. Total respect.
@@quantum5661 I was thinking last night what he'd think about "Mr Beast chocolate" then made myself sad. Rest In Peace.
@@GamersNexus Keep making content and never change Steve, I work at a DevOps company in Bulgaria and you are very highly regarded among our team, even in a small country far away!
I could listen to you for hours.
It helps that I learn something every time, but you got a good voice for this.
When I started watching LTT videos a few years ago they seemed accurate, clean, and believable despite being goofy (that's just his brand). Now all of those same qualities are eroding under the weight of the company trying to push out more and more videos to sustain itself.
Exactly my thoughts.
LTT/LMG has started doing too many things. They have lost focus.
Gotta make that $$$
You are clueless lol. Linus stopped being a real accurate tech channel around 2017 at the very latest all videos are just entertainment for zoomers with 1 tech item involved to still lie that they are in any way at all tech related.
They've given up their brand identity. Many years ago they used to be focused on smart consumer choices and getting the most bang for your buck.
Now they're selling a 70 dollar screwdriver. It's an absolutely unreal out of touch price tag for a tool that you could spend less than half on and get a tool that'll last you for life from dewalt or Stanley.
Imagine for a moment they were on the reviewing end of their own screwdriver 5 years ago. They'd be telling the creators to get fucked with a price tag like that
They were never accurate. They are great at entertaining but never a trustful source of information.
This is tragic for the guys at Billet Labs. Hopefully they can recover from all of this.
I hope the Streissand Effect hits them with a vengeance.
They have grounds for a lawsuit. Defamation and theft. Sadly, two small guys can't afford what it costs to defend themselves in court.
Actually made me mad seeing how they got treated..
Have to agree with this. With how fickle consumers are these days, who knows just how many wrote them off completely and will NEVER give them a chance because of the classic saying "You never get a second chance at a first impression" and their first impression has been wrecked pretty hard, plus with their prototype being auctioned off that probably now is already at some fab being reverse engineered to be cloned.
I wish them the best and hope they can recover in some way from this, perhaps at least on the part of not having card access GN might have some connections to possibly help them get a high end card like a 4090 or something for their lab to at least help with that, replacing that best sample prototype though is going to be hell.
Honestly, out of everything in this video this was by far the worst for me. They bashed a small company based on using it with the wrong product, kept the product so no other reviewers or media could also use and test, then turned around and stole an expensive prototype and sold it into the wild potentially for a competitor to buy. That is crazy.
Steve and Gamers Nexus is probably one of the best consumer advocates in any industry.
steve to be is like gaben. i just trust him. plus they both look like jesus. and jesus was a cool guy.
LTT is good for entertainment but I always come here for the actual data. One of the problems that makes LTT videos go from mistakes to outright lying, is due to Linus being exceptionally prideful and believing he's always right about a certain topic, thus causing the whole Billet Labs debacle. LTT did them so dirty and honestly deserve to be sued for damages in this case.
A media group who still holds their friends to the same standard as everyone else. This is why Gamers Nexus is the best in the business. The quality and transparency of this team is simply magnificent!
Imagine if our government were full of people like this... Transparent and honest...
Like it's supposed to be? Yeah that would be awesome! Sucks that money talks at all levels.@@shadowsayer1516
Please show me a single piece of evidence that suggests Linus Sebastian and Steve Burke are actually friends.
The Billet segment was so hard to listen to because even someone with average usage and knowledge of computers can at least do the basics that were not followed from LTT.
They used to be friends, and now that LTT tries to branch out into serious hardware reviews with possibly the most ambitious review/database project ever attempted, they are competition and maybe even an existential threat. They weren't competition for GN, not really, but they will become competition now. With even more testing equipment purchases, a vastly bigger team and infrastructure and so on. I don't think this video would have been made if it weren't for that, so it's most likely not (only) out of the goodness of his heart and the purity of his conscience that Steve invested so much work into this material. Ultimately, it is good for consumers - accountability is good - but I must admit GN's attitude of moral superiority is a tad irritating to me. I'm not judging, I don't know how I would have behaved. Maybe this was the best decision possible.
As a consumer I respect your honesty and the way you don't care about the backlash. Thank you for all your hard work, afford and testing experience.
Should i just use Tom's hardware testing for purchasing advice?
The most baffling for me is the situation with the 3090 ti block. He refused to to get it tested on the correct GPU and then his argument is, he will not spend another "resources" to have it tested properly because no one should be buying this product. Then why even upload the false testing when they knew it has no value... And also who is he to say no one should buy the product, what people buy and what they dont buy is their own business. There are many enthusiants with deep pockets which would be willing to spend that kind of money on something unique, but why would they, when they dont even know how the block performs...
And the audacity to auction the block when they were asked to give it back to the Billet Labs... That's just abysmal...
Sunk cost, he thinks, that because he spent time and people on that video he deserves to publish it (and make money ) even though he:
a) openly states he did inproper testing
b) fucks over startup
c) obviously doesnt care about proper data
d) fucks over startup again (WAN show "nobody should buy it")
That just shows no remorse or intent to be factual.
Because he doesn't care. He is entertainer first and far behind actual tester. The reason being entertainment brings more money than reliability. Apparently not even the lab changes this
30:00 timestamp - and I agree. The only reason I can come up with is an attempt to downplay the consequences of their actions.
> "It doesn't matter if our terrible video unfairly sabotages potential sales of this product...because no one was going to buy it anyways, so there!"
_(It also implies that an accurate review would have come to the same negative conclusions as their inaccurate review, and therefore their mistakes shouldn't matter.)_
Although, he can't back up a descriptive claim about the future (like, "no one was going to buy it anyways")...so, he instead chooses the easier to defend prescriptive claim, framing it as his opinion that "no one should buy it."
I doubt that was a conscious decision like I wrote it out, though - just something most people do naturally: phrasing their argument around what could be called their subjective opinions, vs. objective facts.
(Especially when the "fact" is literally impossible to prove because no one can tell the future and Linus definitely can't reasonably claim to know for sure how many people might be interested in purchasing such a product from Billet Labs. )
/End ramble sorry lol 😅✌️
Thank you. Linus appears to be a lying, corrupt ruthless materialist item of refuse.
It's Linus Media Group now. This is no longer simply a guy who is passionate about hardware, informing his peers and fellow techies. This is a businessman who is passionate about making money. From my limited scope, I'm certain he is a reasonable (potentially great) person to work with and for, and I'm sure he's still quite passionate about tech. But the bottom line now is, well ... everything.
When you make profit a priority, it doesn't just automatically make you a bad person, far from it. However, in my personal experience, it definitely makes one become more willing to let your ethics (and even morals) shift.
What they did to Billet Labs was just disgraceful, and highlights to me there's a fundamental problem with how the company's run. I haven't watched any of their content since I found out about it. Watching this vid, well wow, I can't trust any of their reviews, so that was a good decision on my part. Thanks for getting this out there.
LTT doesn't feel like a UA-cam channel anymore, it's just a corporation now. And for journalistic integrity, having cooperate connections isn't an asset, it's a drawback.
I know exactly how you feel - LTT comes off as fake and hyper-commercialized; their best days are over.
I think you nailed it.
Oh, I thought the entire channel was just an advert for LTT store!
Corproation and integrity is something that never occurs in the same sentence.
yeah Linus is watching too many self help run a corporation with buzzwords here and there and diversity bs. that life is lame and getting woke
When Linus addresses this on WAN show, he better have already taken steps to rectify the situation with Billet Labs. That was beyond egregious, especially auctioning off the prototype.
Can they, even? I don't have the faintest idea how you'd unscrew that pooch.
You sweet Summer child...
yeah they should at the very least buy it back at their expense to send over. It's insane that this happened in the first place
That was probably a miscommunication between departments, but such a miscommunication is pretty bad. They really need to STOP GROWING and optimize their current size.
I suspect that is legally actionable. Depending on what agreement or NDA LMG and Billet Labs had in place regarding the review of the prototype.
Even ignoring bad data, their way of "Just push out the video" drives me nuts. Projects that would have been that much cooler by taking the extra time seem to end in "oh well, could have worked if we just bought the right part." (For example, the latest pool heating video)
The half arsing some of their videos pisses me off, like wait a few days and get all the parts you need and the video will be that much more awesome but no, gotta pump those video numbers!
so many of their videos in the last year seem to have a lot of interesting build up, and then when I feel like I am about to get a really nice conclusion, the video is just over somehow. Endings always seem like an afterthought for them
I completely agree with this statement
@@coltonbyu as long as you made it to the end of the video and gone through a couple ads that they thrown in through the runtime... That's all Linus needs.
Viewer count is their KPI, actually staying till the end is a bonus. NEXT!
@@coltonbyumfw we're getting edged by Linus
I work too hard for my money and time to spend it in misrepresented parts. Thank you for bringing this to light...I have unsubscribed from Linus Tech Tips. They should be banned from UA-cam
The fact alone you don't monetize a +40 min video with LMG's test data deconstructed, which takes a lot of resources, shows how serious you are and not "just bashing on LMG". I think that viewers/fan/backers of both GN and LMG are gratefull for what you have set in motion here.
Companies like LTT usually have to pay five figure sums to a consulting company for feedback like this. It's insane how much Gamers Nexus has helped LTT with this video. And on top of giving free consultation TO THE COMPETITION he also disabled monetization. What a madman! 🌈
Baring in mind LTT then monetized their apology video with a bunch of gags about sponsors and reference to their store. Just speaks for itself and I was in disbelief that was the response.
That's when you know it's serious, good work Gamers Nexus.
four different products in frame at all times tho lmao.
I want to be very clear in that I am not defending LTT here, their behavior has been nothing short of wildly inappropriate with Billet and their employee treatment.
That being said, I think it’s important to understand how much GN stands to benefit from this situation. Since this video was released they’ve gained nearly 100,000 subscribers.
I believe this video is good journalism, and they’ve approached this very well, but I think it’s a slippery slope here. Creating pieces like this can be informative and honorable journalism, but it can also be a power grab if it’s overdone.
Again, not accusing, I just think it’s worth being skeptical everywhere.
Gamers Nexus is the GOLD STANDARD in ethical, responsible and accurate tech journalism. Keep on keeping on!
All "drama" aside, I REALLY like that an expert in the field is watching the same content audiences are and fact checking.
Content creators are incentivized to make as many videos as possible, not make factual content. This type of video is one of the only ways anyone would know if LTT was lying or just wrong about something.
They do have an incentive to be as factual as possible, it's called their reputation and credibility.
@@Pushing_Pixels
You're absolutely correct. Credibility is the most valuable asset they can own, and so easily lost!
@@Pushing_Pixels I'd say it depends. If you're being "mostly" honest but cut corners to be faster it can feel like you're being efficient since no one is really calling you out and you're able to pump out videos really fast. UNTIL they are called out on it, it can build up the incentive to keep doing that. Posting often can help a channel gain quite a bit of money and viewers. Reputation IS a massive factor but until someone is like "hey, this might be an issue", there is am incentive to make content fast. Especially in topics that moves fast (drama, tech, news/journalism in general). Since if you post faster, there's a good chance people will find YOUR video first.
I'd definitely say that not lying or being sloppy is the way better option, but I could also easily see why some channels get lost in making fast content rather than quality content. Its not good, but the incentive is there for some people (it just might bite you in the ass later). But there's also channels that don't suffer any real consequences from lying and making low quality content as well, so the intensive for them is huge.
after UA-cam suggested these guys for 2 videos it then suggested this video. Im thankful for you making this.
If a single video could be transcribed into 1 word. This would be "oof"
Excellent video GN
I knew they'd been slacking for years and had slowly tuned out the "noise" of LTT. but this still left me awestruck.
Oh wow it's Karak, keep it real bro.
He's on damage control now. You love to see it!
And transcribed to 1 quote:
If you come at the king, you best not miss.
Oh hey, we have the same initials :D
The Billetlab situation really pierced me in the heart
I'm very sorry for them
Why, they made a bad product?
The argument was that nobody was going to use an $800 product on a last gen card. So testing that would add no value for consumers.
They also did say in the video that the product was not designed for the 4090. Maybe they should have stressed more that this data didn't mean anything because of that and was purely for entertainment. But it's also not like they were trying to hide this fact. They clearly stated it.
@@4203105doesn’t mean you report inaccurately by knowingly testing incorrectly
To sell (auction) their latest prototype out from under them, that's just the lowest of the low imo. :/
@@4203105You've copy-pasted this comment multiple time in response to others.
You're really committed to astroturfing for Linus aren't you?
And why wouldn't someone buy a fancy water block for a 3090Ti? It's hardly obsolete, and anyone who bought the card in the first place has discretionary income. Some of those people might want a premium water block (if it works properly on the card it's designed for).
Keeping LinusTechTips accountable is very important and is not drama, thank you for doing this!
In the scientific world, it is purely referred to as 'peer review.' Everyone should be checking each others' data to look for deviations.
It's really funny to see multiple members of lmg including linus say "I only wish we could stop shoveling shit out of the door 😔✊🏽 oh well"
Steve, you’ve navigated this situation with LTT with honour and respect. You’re a true man of character.
Oh my god, that whole Billet labs situation just kept getting worse and worse. The language Linus used was so reckless and harsh, gosh I feel bad for those guys. That they would auction off a small company's prototype that they agreed to return, potentially putting it in the hands of a competitor, is absolutely insane.
fr they got fucked and from only watching ltt content you wouldnt even know about it
love ur stuff man
Yeah, so not clasic linus
like literally, Linus seemed like an absolute garbage person here. And I have been watching LTT from like 500k subs
I question if he auctioned it off for himself to steal the design. I guess if LTT ever presents a product anything close or exact to the prototype, would it be grounds for suspicion & to sue him? I wonder.
A multimillion dollar company refusing to spend less than $1,000 to retest a product for accurate results is wild. The way he said it makes it sound like he thought it was completely ridiculous to spend a few hundred dollars to do things the right way.
That would mean he couldn't make his heated floors be cooled floors next summer and a city where the average 2 bedroom condo is over 1M. So he needs every penny. To bad Canada stopped making pennies but that is good news for him because he is no longer getting copper posing from pinching them so hard.
Remember when he was justifying purchasing the stand for an apple computer at $1000 (since it didn't come with a stand for the monitor...) because it was a "small business expense compared to the cost of the computer"? Yeah, that was cringe back then, and even more so now.
Suggesting that a tentpole project that is meant to be "weird and unique" is a waste of money, while testing it incorrectly, and at the same time producing videos about $100k desks. It's massive hypocricy.
Will I call this the Hasan Piker curse.
Linus has a massive ego and doesn’t care about anyone else accept himself