Many thanks, Linus and Luke, for raising awareness of our campaign in detail and providing your honest opinion on the matter; your position of standing against these practices, and shedding light on the importance of staying together as a whole community, really gives us a big chance to reform our media standards. I also have to give a big thanks to all of the LTT channel viewers who showed us sincere words of support after the last WAN show; we have been big fans of your outstanding content since 2012, and we hope that one day we will get to know all about you guys in person. Have a great day. #Respect_ME_PC_Community
No one cares. Literally every review in all industries is paid for or just someone shilling. Yes that includes LTT/LMG even though they say they’re not.
Linus should address this on the main channel. People should submit evidence of shitty practices and those companies should be called out. That kind of shit is ridiculous. Edit: and Linus is one of the few channels who can actually stand up to these giant companies. As Luke said, others may not have the “freedom” to do so because it may jeopardize their livelihoods. Edit edit: fixed spellings because of my big dumb thumbs.
@@Reidbit NOt the person you were replying to, but I didn't know what you meant until you spelled it out. I mostly just watch the WAN show so I don't think of the main thing I watch "not being on the main channel"
@@kg4wwn no worries I always forget that Linus puts the wan show on the main channel.. most folks don’t do that with podcast style content and since Linus has a bunch of channels anyways I just blanked and thought it wasn’t on the big boi one.
I mean the primary reason LTT has grown into the titan that it has, is because the team built their whole brand around integrity and honesty. That's literally all we want, is someone to HONESTLY tell us what products are like, and sad to say, that's hard to find these days
They could always send the data from LTT Labs to reviewers that have been black listed for doing the right thing. It is not as good as having the product themselves but it would help.
@@Djsjslwjwhsbshk I don't see a problem with that, I'm there to get information. I trust the LTT data to be comprehensive and getting a chuckle from the video is nice but not a necessity.
@@Voltaic_Fire But it will just be repetitive. Most people might prefer watching it on LTT itself rather than on other channels that are going to show the same graph as LTT. Apart from that, the cost of them buying this data after each hardware released would be much more than if they did the testing themselves in the long run. Plus, having different people test these can balance out the faults of some channels review. For example, recent LTT video of 4090 gave wrong values for Cyber Punk interms of fps which was not seen by other channels ,because of which we could deduce that LTT review for that was wrong, which they admitted later.
@@Voltaic_Fire for you yeah maybe but for the content creatore? it's gonna be hell not doing what they love and be a reader machine for someone else and that's gonna reflect on hosting the videos
Love when you guys get the word out on this stuff. It honestly has happened many different times to my channel over the years, and it's really sad the lack of integrity brands and reviewers have. When you stand up, they don't like it.
These brands view UA-camr's as an extension of their marketing. It's good that the bigger guys are willing to stand up against manipulative practices but I still find the smaller channels and sometimes even bigger will feel that they need to maintain a positive relationship to be able to get early review samples or make exclusive content and not be so hard on the brand when it deserves it. People aren't stupid though and they will pick up on it when they see a channel be more critical of a competing brand than another of which they usually always positively cover or they do a lot of sponsored and exclusive content with them.
They don't view them as that, they ARE that. That's the entire reason any business relationship exists with content creators. They're ALL hired when they're given these samples.
Would it be possible to create something like a reviewer's union. It doesn't have to be much more than a discord or private forum. A place where reviewers get together and discuss such problems and decide how t o address them. If let's say 10 from every country are in this union, and they see a trend that companies try something shady, they band together and all release videos of the problem. Like you guys did here, but more organized. Then the companies would stop such thing because it could harm their income worldwide.
Due to how these companies work, something like that would have to be put together very quietly among a large number of major reviewers per nation and more or less sprung onto the companies involved. There's also the problem of NDA based atomization, where members can be sued by these companies even for discussing the NDA'd hardware or abuses surrounding an active NDA if even 1 member isn't on the same NDA.
PLEASE PLEASE! Never stop talking about and calling out bad advertisers and supporting your fellow independent reviewers! I will never not take your guys opinion into my consideration as long as I get truthful reviews from you whether I have to wait till you have to buy one yourself or not. These corporations man......
Somehow Gamers Nexus escaped with light hate from Nvidea given they have had them in person tech videos such as the thermal design after the debacle. GN even got in with EVGA and still got NVidia in person
But GN is big enough now to count as a 'Scary' channel. I'd bet there's also a big disconnect between the engineering background members of companies like Nvidia and the corporate background people. Engineering guys must love going to GN because they can really talk in detail about what they built, the Corporate ones probably fear them because there is no hiding from GN.
I like the idea of you guys sponsoring small YTers to review products LTT does not. Great idea! While I understand Luke's rebuttal on that idea, there are Tech YTers that are building a channel where half their content is older parts, not always cutting-edge parts, as they rarely get new items at embargo time.
Linus, With all the tech you have I'm still amazed that you havent made a portable streaming kit, you need a portable light, mic, camera, laptop and HUB, i bet you can make it fit in that freaking HUGE backpack.
A bunch of laptop and phone reviewers are like this. They dont actually review it with negatives. Just run through specs and bullet point press features. Theres a metric ton of small tec youtubers that get their kicks from this. Pays the bills and gets them free and discounted products. Makes it quite hard to find real world reviews for lesser known products when the lesser youtubers are calling their Ads "Reviews"
Surprised there isn't a better and more direct law precedent set for abusive actions that attempt to coerce individuals, employees and even small companies based on implied threats to livelihood. If you're not "bussiness'ing fair" there have to be repercussion beyond naming and shaming, because as stated these companies are generally too big to otherwise have any accountability.
E for Electric got banned from half the industry's media events because he dares to say the truth about electric cars he reviews. Jim Sterling got blacklisted from the video game industry because he wasn't just a corporate mouthpiece. This trend is disturbing. Did Roger Ebert ever have to pay to see a film he reviewed? This has to stop.
There's one thing that could be done: Viewers could give their views to thorough, independent reviews that maybe take a little while to come out, instead of flocking to whoever has the earliest video. But that would require patience and resisting the desire to have the New Shiny Thing right now, so it'll never happen.
You guys are awesome. Keep on telling it how it is... Honestly speaking, I love he honesty. There really aren't very many trustworthy people or companies out there anymore. So you guys are doing a really great thing. Thank You Linus, LTT team , and anyone else involved!
Honestly, when I was looking into a new 3D printer, I like when reviewers give positive AND negative. If they give only positive and never talk about the product outside of a sponsored video, I give it less thought. That's why I chose the Ender 3 v2 over the Elegoo Neptune 2 or 3 even though I thought the Neptune is a better printer. Also... Being so nitpicky on the COLOR IN THE BACKGROUND? Time to dig this company up to avoid their TVs
Depending on how a contract is structured, if you “hired” another channel as a subcontractor to make the review about the embargoed product, then it in theory might be possible to send them it without any problem because they would technically be “working” for you. Idk if it’d work at all, it’s just an idea I thought I’d through out there.
oh yeah the venus veil, still absolutely hilarious, and as a German who likes a LOT of dark humor I was obviously surprised when they mentioned german technology from 80 years ago XD
4:30 - it's only the same with game companies, I don't remember who it was but someone did a Gotham Knights sponsored video and WB wanted them to remove more or less everything negative because it would ruin reputation
In Chile, the TV channel "Chilevisión" puts in every day an "article" featuring "the future now", in escence a big 10 mins ad for Samsung tech. Samsung doesn't even support chile that much for example, to use Bixby, reporters have to talk in english to the devices to work, is just hilarious. Worst part, every 3 weeks they repeat the article like it is new.
I am so grateful that LMG exists as a platform (one of many) that is spreading awareness of this stuff. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like if the axis powers won WWII and we were ALL living in some sort of terrifying dystopian Mao's China 2.0 and I get really anxious. There is SO much corruption amongst Chinese vendors. If I had a Canadollar for every time a Chinese company attempted to bribe me I could buy a 4090.
Perhaps a single large organixation could be made that receives all the review samples and distributes it, that way preventing assymetric power dynamics
Its pretty common. I worked for a big Tech channel on YT(In India) for a few months and LG send over a laptop, I forget the name. Pretty much a Macbook clone with stupidly bad thermals, screen and keyboard flex. I wrote a very critical piece on it for an YT video. The editor above me pretty much ignored all the criticism and went ahead with branding the product Decent, in place of Bad. They explained to me they cant criticize companies like this since the other tech channels are not and LG will stop sampling them.
Linus keep doing what your doing these companies need to be called out your buissness team is Linus' shield and Linus is your communities spear to fight back and now it sounds weird not really much of a tech guy but Ive learned a bit just watching y'all
Create a media friendliness and honestly rating, and create metrics around attempted interference vs media honesty & freedom, retaliation, attempts to skirt advertising rules [eg "make a fake review but read our script"], etc. Publish it. Make it clear to anyone, whenever it comes up, where companies you've interacted with sit on the scale.
I think computer hardware is one of the few segments where reviewers are openly critical of a bad product. Almost everything else, including consumer electronics and cars generally avoids negativity. I can think of a few exceptions, Savagegeese being one of them, but by and large most "reviews" are just product tours. Companies have all the leverage when access is a challenge. It's why outside of Consumer Reports all appliance reviews just regurgitate press releases. Collaborating with marketing teams and ad agencies over the years has left me with strong cynicism and a general dislike of the industry. There's a legitimate need for advertising, but the manipulation described here is just the tip of the iceberg. And that's on top of being exploitative; designers in marketing face a brutal work-life balance that rivals the gaming and FX industries.
The "advertiser complaining about lighting" thing reminds me of that conspiracy theory that GamersNexus was paid off by Nvidia to put green boxes in the background of AMD GPU reviews. Except actually real and not bullshit.
I remember a gaming UA-camr a number of years ago saying they asked a dev why they continue to send game codes despite the fact the rest of the industry basically blacklisted them for calling out their bs, and they said "youll just buy the products anyway and call out its problems so theres no point" i feel most people especially journalists need to do this even if they get blacklisted, im here for the person idc about the company.
When one of the hosts is at home please use teamspeak or something with loseless audio transmission for their mic, and let them take a studio mic from the office. It sounds awful and it's really easy to make it sound way better.
I'd understand if a manufacturer didn't want their product placed next to a product that they weren't competing against. Like intel and 5800x3d or AMD and the 5800x3d.... Ye if you're still on am4 and 1000, 2000 Ryzen get that instead of a new 7000 CPU
If you want to still do that "slush fund for independent reviewers" thing to work out, i'd suggest teaming up with Project Farm and just giving him money. Part of PF's appeal is the fact that he never accepts sponsored products and always buys the products himself. Lightening his load for reviewing things is always going to be a good thing.
I disagree that a company deciding not to send products to certain review channels early on is a direct attack on the channel owner’s livelihood. If a company doesn’t like the way you cover their products, I see nothing wrong with them removing you from the pre-launch review-copy list. It might feel like an attack but companies are under no obligation to send out early samples of their products. I do think that it is generally best for the consumers when thorough, honest reviewers are given the opportunity to review products before launch but it is by no means necessary. No one has to buy products on day one. If there were no such thing as early access review samples, potential buyers could easily just wait until reviewers are able to buy or borrow a product and create a review before the customers make their purchasing decisions. Companies handing these products out to reviewers weeks before launch is by no means obligatory. They have the right to do whatever they want with their own products and they can work with or choose not to work with anyone they want.
Aren't there legal requirements for ads by youtubers to be specifically marked as advertising? I recall some youtubers getting in hot water over this, so a company specifically sponsoring a video and trying to get the youtuber to hide it... seems like there would be legal consequences, attempting to induce someone to break the law and that sort of thing...
The insane thing is how minor these issues tend to be from the companies who push it. The average person consuming this content is aware enough to understand that no product is 100% perfect in every way but marketing people in marketing bubbles grossly overreact to every little detail. Its a very antiquated approach to marketing on enthusiast products. I worked in a mainstream clothing retailer for years and if you tried to pitch our items half as aggressively as online marketing, you'd just get eye-rolls. There are times for companies to push back, mostly when a platform clearly has a negative bias and is nitpicking to the extreme for clicks but not because new feature X is only good, not great.
Well the embargo crap, I mean usually the real product isn't there to buy before 2 months later anyway, so at embargo day or not doesn't matter as much. In fact I always arrive late these days because of insane paper launches from the big guys.
There is definitely a different set of ethics to business depending of the region you are in. I have been to places where bribery (gifts) isn't just accepted but a requirement to perform any type of business transaction. But almost none of those places would strong arming or threatening behavior be acceptable in the course of business. Not to say it doesn't happen just that even in these more corrupt regions when it happens they know the potential consequences. The internet and rapid broad dissemination of information is going to cause these international businesses to have to reassess their SOPs around the globe. That or shell company their operations even more to compartmentalize the bad press and fallout. Also just because not everyone is a bad egg at these companies doesn't mean they can be complicit or turn a blind eye to corporate misdeeds. Especially when this stuff becomes public knowledge.
I can't really understand why those corporations are doing that. I completely agree that if they are not happy with someone they can stop sending them stuff (I never got anything for free in my entire life and I am not crying about it) But trying to force someone to change their opinion on something is stupid. If you don't like them or you think they are not being fair don't work with them.
That is such a bad idea, who are they gonna compare cards against. AMD and Intel? If you are just talking about reviews I agree but if it's against even comparison then no.
@@flintfrommother3gaming it might not be a good solution, but honestly, what else would you do? Its the same with shitty games, they only get away with it because people keep buying them like idiots. If nobody shows them the middlefinger that has at least some clout it will only get worse and worse. Its bad enough that people bought the overpriced fire hazzard called 4090, as long as dogshit like that works nothing is gonna change for the better...
@@Gnarfendorf People buy it for a reason (or sometimes the exact opposite), it has propreitary technologies that are actually much better (artificially inflated with Nvidia paying software to use them but still) like CUDA that AMD and Intel doesn't own. If you are an average Joe and don't use any of them and just want to hop in to some gaming action you are just ignorant of your options and deserve the cons of Nvidia to be honest. It's a shame really, they aren't a good company but people still choose them because "nVeNc" with their 1 follower Twitch channel.
@@flintfrommother3gaming ofc they buy them for a reason, the reason is just bs in most cases, thats the problem. People just buy the new shiny toy regardless if its actually worth it, brainless consumerism at its finest.
I totally understand why brands are so petty when it comes to how their products are reviewed. They’re in competition. They are trying to dominate the competition, that’s how you win in business. Any reference to their competition is spoiling their 15 minutes of fame. It’s an extremely selfish but effective strategy.
11:42 So NVIDIA does not like Linus ... well a whole lot of people do not like NVIDIA for their behaviour. To this day they prevent development of an open-source driver, using digital signatures (based on cryptographic keys), required by their GPUs before loading the firmware in the drivers. Just so Linux can not develop a proper NVIDIA driver. Even when Steam can now play almost any game on Linux. As market leaders (80% discrete GPU market share), NVIDIA has hurt FOSS and Linux adoption for decades now. They use the proprietary driver to force data collection and licensing terms. Can you believe their license states if NVIDIA auto-updates their driver and bricks your system, the only one responsible is still the user ?
Yrs ago we had some companies not just want veto over our reviews but they wanted full editorial oversight And some tried to insist we only do tests only by their explicit instructions etc or they would blacklist us. We told them to shove it up their asses and we havnt had a direct nvidia card in many years.
I know reviewers always say it's better to have pre launch review samples to make videos on because if you had to wait and buy the product on store shelves, then there's no point because everyone else who actually got review samples will already have their videos out. However, if everyone else (or even most of them) are being manipulated by the hardware maker to release favorable reviews, then I think you'd be better off buying the product and releasing a late review because then everyone knows for absolutely sure your not being manipulated for a favorable review, because hardware makes can't stop you from saying whatever you want at that point...
my humble opinion: Ban early reviews entirely, all who engage in early review should be fined 10% of their yearly international revenue and 20% on repeat offense, just a simple EU fine - oh both the company AND the reviewers. Let everyone get the item at the same time, and those who are the best content creators will be the ones with the most success, not the ones hand picked by the company. Things that may or may work if you can create fair regulations: - Limited presale, give control of a limited sample to at least 10 3rd party sellers who then sell it for maybe a bit of a premium. And again to regulate, the fine is 10% of international revenue, 20% on repeat offense.
@@sovietmoose5624 stop the practice altogether to not have anyone release product reviews before other people can, gaining an unfair market advantage. Also to prevent loopholes where some reviewers might have an early look
UA-cam reviews, amazon reviews, basically all reviews, have been basically useless for most products for at least 5 years now unless you already knew channels well before then that are still running and have some trust remaining. Bought and owned by marketing departments, we live in a sad timeline.
Oh my.4:18 - 4:36 - why is a company ever in the position of having to do (or even threaten) layoffs just at the whim of the market? (and I haven't even seen the rest of the video segment yet!) Doesn't that indicate that the company isn't robust in its product quality? In addition, relating to the section starting at 14:08, I would like to suggest something for companies that want to be so hard-line about how their products are presented. Perhaps every single tech review company should stop reviewing their products, and state why, very clearly and emphatically. I agree with Linus here, that a review company and other UA-cam channels should be free to express a view on a product, even if it might not be entirely favourable. I had a worse expression, but I need to consider the almighty beeping machine too. 😁
Companies that pull shit like this need to be publically shamed and bashed for it. Not everybody working for Nvidia or Intel is an asshole, but public shaming is the only way these big corps will actually listen and change things.
I know I'm late to this video, but could LTT Labs do the testing of embargoed hardware on behalf of smaller creators and then give them the results to review?
I'm not sure it's possible. Hue shifting an object is easy enough, hue shifting light is extremely difficult to impossible, as it isn't in a specific area or even a specific hue, the light takes on part of the color of stuff it bounces off of. This completely breaks all methods of hue shifting that I know of.
This isnt different cultural norms. Its that some companies are deceitful, and they don't like being publicly called on that, cuz of course a liar doesn't want to be revealed.
I'm guessing from the existence of ethics and morals, hardware unboxed is not that other unbox channel with the scammer giving away non existent iphones and such.
Hypetrains create this kind phenomenons. If people at large wait for the actual tech shipped to consumers and independent honest reviewers to prove itself companys will start to focus on what actually matters. No preorders my dudes.
Pc hardware companies may in fact do what you guys say they're doing but to be fair there is a level of scrutiny held to Microsoft, Nvidia, and Intel that doesn't seem to be held against their competitors by the UA-cam pc hardware reviewers. Don't believe me, go look at all their channel video pages and see who appears most in the thumbnails, and in what context they appear. There has been a major shift from reviewing to policing and some of these channels are out for blood on these companies. Some channels even doing multi-part series on hardware or customer service mistakes going as far as demanding statements from these companies, performing very limited bias testing scenarios, all for the thrill of "sticking it to the man". This form of media sells, the negativity sells, and there is plenty of blame to be shared in this space.
Many thanks, Linus and Luke, for raising awareness of our campaign in detail and providing your honest opinion on the matter; your position of standing against these practices, and shedding light on the importance of staying together as a whole community, really gives us a big chance to reform our media standards. I also have to give a big thanks to all of the LTT channel viewers who showed us sincere words of support after the last WAN show; we have been big fans of your outstanding content since 2012, and we hope that one day we will get to know all about you guys in person. Have a great day.
#Respect_ME_PC_Community
Good luck guys, I’m it’s awesome seeing a united front that stands up for the users.
Great job for standing up for what's right 👍
our campaign has reached linus yayyyy.........may man
#Respect_ME_PC_Community
No one cares. Literally every review in all industries is paid for or just someone shilling. Yes that includes LTT/LMG even though they say they’re not.
@@BensWatchClub woah ben here?
Linus should address this on the main channel. People should submit evidence of shitty practices and those companies should be called out. That kind of shit is ridiculous.
Edit: and Linus is one of the few channels who can actually stand up to these giant companies. As Luke said, others may not have the “freedom” to do so because it may jeopardize their livelihoods.
Edit edit: fixed spellings because of my big dumb thumbs.
this is a clip from the WAN Show which is from the main channel
@@pasmado75 you know what I meant. A dedicated video to the topic.. not a podcast that most won’t see.
@@Reidbit NOt the person you were replying to, but I didn't know what you meant until you spelled it out. I mostly just watch the WAN show so I don't think of the main thing I watch "not being on the main channel"
@@kg4wwn no worries I always forget that Linus puts the wan show on the main channel.. most folks don’t do that with podcast style content and since Linus has a bunch of channels anyways I just blanked and thought it wasn’t on the big boi one.
Linus can upload a video about a tech company and that companys stocks plummet to the ground like a stack of cards
I mean the primary reason LTT has grown into the titan that it has, is because the team built their whole brand around integrity and honesty. That's literally all we want, is someone to HONESTLY tell us what products are like, and sad to say, that's hard to find these days
They could always send the data from LTT Labs to reviewers that have been black listed for doing the right thing. It is not as good as having the product themselves but it would help.
it’s not gonna be fun or fulfilling it’s gonna reading charts only
@@Djsjslwjwhsbshk I don't see a problem with that, I'm there to get information. I trust the LTT data to be comprehensive and getting a chuckle from the video is nice but not a necessity.
@@Voltaic_Fire But it will just be repetitive. Most people might prefer watching it on LTT itself rather than on other channels that are going to show the same graph as LTT. Apart from that, the cost of them buying this data after each hardware released would be much more than if they did the testing themselves in the long run. Plus, having different people test these can balance out the faults of some channels review. For example, recent LTT video of 4090 gave wrong values for Cyber Punk interms of fps which was not seen by other channels ,because of which we could deduce that LTT review for that was wrong, which they admitted later.
@@Voltaic_Fire for you yeah maybe but for the content creatore? it's gonna be hell not doing what they love and be a reader machine for someone else and that's gonna reflect on hosting the videos
@@Djsjslwjwhsbshk You make a fair point.
Love when you guys get the word out on this stuff. It honestly has happened many different times to my channel over the years, and it's really sad the lack of integrity brands and reviewers have. When you stand up, they don't like it.
These brands view UA-camr's as an extension of their marketing. It's good that the bigger guys are willing to stand up against manipulative practices but I still find the smaller channels and sometimes even bigger will feel that they need to maintain a positive relationship to be able to get early review samples or make exclusive content and not be so hard on the brand when it deserves it.
People aren't stupid though and they will pick up on it when they see a channel be more critical of a competing brand than another of which they usually always positively cover or they do a lot of sponsored and exclusive content with them.
They don't view them as that, they ARE that. That's the entire reason any business relationship exists with content creators. They're ALL hired when they're given these samples.
Would it be possible to create something like a reviewer's union. It doesn't have to be much more than a discord or private forum. A place where reviewers get together and discuss such problems and decide how t o address them. If let's say 10 from every country are in this union, and they see a trend that companies try something shady, they band together and all release videos of the problem. Like you guys did here, but more organized. Then the companies would stop such thing because it could harm their income worldwide.
Due to how these companies work, something like that would have to be put together very quietly among a large number of major reviewers per nation and more or less sprung onto the companies involved. There's also the problem of NDA based atomization, where members can be sued by these companies even for discussing the NDA'd hardware or abuses surrounding an active NDA if even 1 member isn't on the same NDA.
LTT being so big, they could head up the group too if they wanted to
Unions punish hard workers and reward slackers.
@@anonanon69 Absolutely, what OP is describing isn’t really a union though, more a consortium or watchdog yaknow
@@anonanon69 What billionaire told you that?
PLEASE PLEASE! Never stop talking about and calling out bad advertisers and supporting your fellow independent reviewers! I will never not take your guys opinion into my consideration as long as I get truthful reviews from you whether I have to wait till you have to buy one yourself or not. These corporations man......
Somehow Gamers Nexus escaped with light hate from Nvidea given they have had them in person tech videos such as the thermal design after the debacle. GN even got in with EVGA and still got NVidia in person
But GN is big enough now to count as a 'Scary' channel. I'd bet there's also a big disconnect between the engineering background members of companies like Nvidia and the corporate background people. Engineering guys must love going to GN because they can really talk in detail about what they built, the Corporate ones probably fear them because there is no hiding from GN.
9:25
So Samsung was mad about you having a red light in your video.
Well, on the plus side, if those lights were a Pantone color, they'll just appear black anyway and that company won't have anything to worry about.
I like the idea of you guys sponsoring small YTers to review products LTT does not. Great idea! While I understand Luke's rebuttal on that idea, there are Tech YTers that are building a channel where half their content is older parts, not always cutting-edge parts, as they rarely get new items at embargo time.
I love how Linus is more than willing to stand up for the little guy.
Honest reviews are priceless. Thank you.
Linus, With all the tech you have I'm still amazed that you havent made a portable streaming kit, you need a portable light, mic, camera, laptop and HUB, i bet you can make it fit in that freaking HUGE backpack.
this is really cool to listen to, learning about the ramifications of the hardware unboxed scandal
I have a 3090 and was going to get a 4090 but their behavior is seriously impacting my upgrade path.
My local news did a segment on the return of taco bell nacho fries. Felt like an ad the entire time.
Linus, would really appreciate seeing a more in-depth video about this on your main channel.
A bunch of laptop and phone reviewers are like this. They dont actually review it with negatives. Just run through specs and bullet point press features. Theres a metric ton of small tec youtubers that get their kicks from this. Pays the bills and gets them free and discounted products. Makes it quite hard to find real world reviews for lesser known products when the lesser youtubers are calling their Ads "Reviews"
Surprised there isn't a better and more direct law precedent set for abusive actions that attempt to coerce individuals, employees and even small companies based on implied threats to livelihood. If you're not "bussiness'ing fair" there have to be repercussion beyond naming and shaming, because as stated these companies are generally too big to otherwise have any accountability.
Me, writing a long screed responding to a rhetorical question posed by Linus then seeing it addressed as I write my comment: Ahhhh fuck.
E for Electric got banned from half the industry's media events because he dares to say the truth about electric cars he reviews. Jim Sterling got blacklisted from the video game industry because he wasn't just a corporate mouthpiece. This trend is disturbing. Did Roger Ebert ever have to pay to see a film he reviewed? This has to stop.
Well Jim Sterling kinda started doing what he hated. At least that is how it looked.
Let’s not forget what Apple did with John Retinger
There's one thing that could be done: Viewers could give their views to thorough, independent reviews that maybe take a little while to come out, instead of flocking to whoever has the earliest video. But that would require patience and resisting the desire to have the New Shiny Thing right now, so it'll never happen.
You guys are awesome. Keep on telling it how it is... Honestly speaking, I love he honesty. There really aren't very many trustworthy people or companies out there anymore. So you guys are doing a really great thing. Thank You Linus, LTT team , and anyone else involved!
Honestly, when I was looking into a new 3D printer, I like when reviewers give positive AND negative. If they give only positive and never talk about the product outside of a sponsored video, I give it less thought. That's why I chose the Ender 3 v2 over the Elegoo Neptune 2 or 3 even though I thought the Neptune is a better printer.
Also... Being so nitpicky on the COLOR IN THE BACKGROUND? Time to dig this company up to avoid their TVs
Depending on how a contract is structured, if you “hired” another channel as a subcontractor to make the review about the embargoed product, then it in theory might be possible to send them it without any problem because they would technically be “working” for you.
Idk if it’d work at all, it’s just an idea I thought I’d through out there.
btw, the medicine ads part reminded me of this, but Dr. Oz lost the senate race
I almost thought he was really there, good editing
"Rage Loudly" nice one Luke 👍👍 sounds like a new game 🤔
I opened this video and immediately saw Luke in his webcam box and thought they were eulogizing him
Tech companies have the Apple mentality, “ we make it , you buy it” good bad or otherwise, just buy the new thing.
Wow, companies are Greedier than I thought💀
Welcome to the world, it's not very fun when your eyes are open.
Shhhh dont think just buy without thought.
However greedy you think any company is, they are orders of magnitude more greedy than that.
oh yeah the venus veil, still absolutely hilarious, and as a German who likes a LOT of dark humor I was obviously surprised when they mentioned german technology from 80 years ago XD
4:30 - it's only the same with game companies, I don't remember who it was but someone did a Gotham Knights sponsored video and WB wanted them to remove more or less everything negative because it would ruin reputation
In Chile, the TV channel "Chilevisión" puts in every day an "article" featuring "the future now", in escence a big 10 mins ad for Samsung tech.
Samsung doesn't even support chile that much for example, to use Bixby, reporters have to talk in english to the devices to work, is just hilarious.
Worst part, every 3 weeks they repeat the article like it is new.
MKBHD very often reviewed products within ever (explicitly) mentioning completion.
Samsung and alienware. Maybe they shouldn't have designed the backing to look exactly the same.
12:00 yeah I think the point is, despite being in their bad book, they're still FORCED to do business with you because of your size and influence
I am so grateful that LMG exists as a platform (one of many) that is spreading awareness of this stuff. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like if the axis powers won WWII and we were ALL living in some sort of terrifying dystopian Mao's China 2.0 and I get really anxious. There is SO much corruption amongst Chinese vendors. If I had a Canadollar for every time a Chinese company attempted to bribe me I could buy a 4090.
Companies: "How do we get better reviews? By making a good product? ... Nahhhh let's just strongarm our way into a good review, that will work!"
Anyone with an actual brain: No, it will not work. Because it's stupid
imagina se o linus soubesse de 1/4 das tretas que acontecem no brasil
Perhaps a single large organixation could be made that receives all the review samples and distributes it, that way preventing assymetric power dynamics
Why don't customers care that businesses do shady evil stuff?
They just keep buying apple products or nvidia cards...
I can't wait to have ads poured directly into my brain. The future is almost here!
"Why does this keep happening?"
Because, for the most part, it works for them.
No tech company ever sent a tech reviewer products till they had the audience.
Its pretty common. I worked for a big Tech channel on YT(In India) for a few months and LG send over a laptop, I forget the name. Pretty much a Macbook clone with stupidly bad thermals, screen and keyboard flex. I wrote a very critical piece on it for an YT video. The editor above me pretty much ignored all the criticism and went ahead with branding the product Decent, in place of Bad. They explained to me they cant criticize companies like this since the other tech channels are not and LG will stop sampling them.
This is why you need a UA-cam channel of your own.
As you say. We keep being censored and letting us know what can we say or not. It has just extended to the digital platforms.
8:02 I thought Linus was gonna rick roll us
Linus keep doing what your doing these companies need to be called out your buissness team is Linus' shield and Linus is your communities spear to fight back and now it sounds weird not really much of a tech guy but Ive learned a bit just watching y'all
This shows how much of smaller UA-cam channels and media outlets ARE doing the bidding of the companies they cover. They don’t all fight back.
Create a media friendliness and honestly rating, and create metrics around attempted interference vs media honesty & freedom, retaliation, attempts to skirt advertising rules [eg "make a fake review but read our script"], etc. Publish it. Make it clear to anyone, whenever it comes up, where companies you've interacted with sit on the scale.
The "scandals" are much much much more prevalent with Smartphone brands. It seems that PC brands are following this bad example.
Long story short, large companies need to hop off of media reviewers nuts
I think computer hardware is one of the few segments where reviewers are openly critical of a bad product. Almost everything else, including consumer electronics and cars generally avoids negativity. I can think of a few exceptions, Savagegeese being one of them, but by and large most "reviews" are just product tours. Companies have all the leverage when access is a challenge. It's why outside of Consumer Reports all appliance reviews just regurgitate press releases.
Collaborating with marketing teams and ad agencies over the years has left me with strong cynicism and a general dislike of the industry. There's a legitimate need for advertising, but the manipulation described here is just the tip of the iceberg. And that's on top of being exploitative; designers in marketing face a brutal work-life balance that rivals the gaming and FX industries.
The "advertiser complaining about lighting" thing reminds me of that conspiracy theory that GamersNexus was paid off by Nvidia to put green boxes in the background of AMD GPU reviews. Except actually real and not bullshit.
I remember a gaming UA-camr a number of years ago saying they asked a dev why they continue to send game codes despite the fact the rest of the industry basically blacklisted them for calling out their bs, and they said "youll just buy the products anyway and call out its problems so theres no point" i feel most people especially journalists need to do this even if they get blacklisted, im here for the person idc about the company.
Linus is fighting the good fight. Thank you.
Best solution for this is an all out agreement for all big reviewers to review the items only when its actually in stores.
luke is that a bottle of vodka lol
When one of the hosts is at home please use teamspeak or something with loseless audio transmission for their mic, and let them take a studio mic from the office. It sounds awful and it's really easy to make it sound way better.
I'd understand if a manufacturer didn't want their product placed next to a product that they weren't competing against.
Like intel and 5800x3d or AMD and the 5800x3d....
Ye if you're still on am4 and 1000, 2000 Ryzen get that instead of a new 7000 CPU
If you want to still do that "slush fund for independent reviewers" thing to work out, i'd suggest teaming up with Project Farm and just giving him money. Part of PF's appeal is the fact that he never accepts sponsored products and always buys the products himself. Lightening his load for reviewing things is always going to be a good thing.
Even Airbnb does this shit.
I disagree that a company deciding not to send products to certain review channels early on is a direct attack on the channel owner’s livelihood. If a company doesn’t like the way you cover their products, I see nothing wrong with them removing you from the pre-launch review-copy list.
It might feel like an attack but companies are under no obligation to send out early samples of their products. I do think that it is generally best for the consumers when thorough, honest reviewers are given the opportunity to review products before launch but it is by no means necessary. No one has to buy products on day one. If there were no such thing as early access review samples, potential buyers could easily just wait until reviewers are able to buy or borrow a product and create a review before the customers make their purchasing decisions. Companies handing these products out to reviewers weeks before launch is by no means obligatory. They have the right to do whatever they want with their own products and they can work with or choose not to work with anyone they want.
Aren't there legal requirements for ads by youtubers to be specifically marked as advertising? I recall some youtubers getting in hot water over this, so a company specifically sponsoring a video and trying to get the youtuber to hide it... seems like there would be legal consequences, attempting to induce someone to break the law and that sort of thing...
The insane thing is how minor these issues tend to be from the companies who push it. The average person consuming this content is aware enough to understand that no product is 100% perfect in every way but marketing people in marketing bubbles grossly overreact to every little detail. Its a very antiquated approach to marketing on enthusiast products. I worked in a mainstream clothing retailer for years and if you tried to pitch our items half as aggressively as online marketing, you'd just get eye-rolls. There are times for companies to push back, mostly when a platform clearly has a negative bias and is nitpicking to the extreme for clicks but not because new feature X is only good, not great.
Luke is chugging that vodka like a champ 👍
#Respect_ME_PC_Community
great job mostafa
Well the embargo crap, I mean usually the real product isn't there to buy before 2 months later anyway, so at embargo day or not doesn't matter as much.
In fact I always arrive late these days because of insane paper launches from the big guys.
the tech quotes sandal
I think helping out smaller creators somehow is a great idea!
I will not buy a product if there isn’t an independent review. How do brands not understand this
There is definitely a different set of ethics to business depending of the region you are in. I have been to places where bribery (gifts) isn't just accepted but a requirement to perform any type of business transaction.
But almost none of those places would strong arming or threatening behavior be acceptable in the course of business. Not to say it doesn't happen just that even in these more corrupt regions when it happens they know the potential consequences.
The internet and rapid broad dissemination of information is going to cause these international businesses to have to reassess their SOPs around the globe. That or shell company their operations even more to compartmentalize the bad press and fallout.
Also just because not everyone is a bad egg at these companies doesn't mean they can be complicit or turn a blind eye to corporate misdeeds. Especially when this stuff becomes public knowledge.
I can't really understand why those corporations are doing that.
I completely agree that if they are not happy with someone they can stop sending them stuff (I never got anything for free in my entire life and I am not crying about it)
But trying to force someone to change their opinion on something is stupid.
If you don't like them or you think they are not being fair don't work with them.
Easy, 98% of the people saw a product on shelves, then look up reviews on UA-cam and only saw good reviews then most likely it will become a sale.
Every top tier tech reviewer needs to get together and cancel all Nvidia reviews for a year. They will never throw these tantrums again after that 👌
That is such a bad idea, who are they gonna compare cards against. AMD and Intel?
If you are just talking about reviews I agree but if it's against even comparison then no.
@@flintfrommother3gaming it might not be a good solution, but honestly, what else would you do? Its the same with shitty games, they only get away with it because people keep buying them like idiots. If nobody shows them the middlefinger that has at least some clout it will only get worse and worse. Its bad enough that people bought the overpriced fire hazzard called 4090, as long as dogshit like that works nothing is gonna change for the better...
@@Gnarfendorf People buy it for a reason (or sometimes the exact opposite), it has propreitary technologies that are actually much better (artificially inflated with Nvidia paying software to use them but still) like CUDA that AMD and Intel doesn't own. If you are an average Joe and don't use any of them and just want to hop in to some gaming action you are just ignorant of your options and deserve the cons of Nvidia to be honest.
It's a shame really, they aren't a good company but people still choose them because "nVeNc" with their 1 follower Twitch channel.
@@flintfrommother3gaming ofc they buy them for a reason, the reason is just bs in most cases, thats the problem. People just buy the new shiny toy regardless if its actually worth it, brainless consumerism at its finest.
@@Gnarfendorf I saw your response in my inbox, I agree with you though I pointed it out in my comment.
I totally understand why brands are so petty when it comes to how their products are reviewed. They’re in competition. They are trying to dominate the competition, that’s how you win in business. Any reference to their competition is spoiling their 15 minutes of fame. It’s an extremely selfish but effective strategy.
11:42 So NVIDIA does not like Linus ... well a whole lot of people do not like NVIDIA for their behaviour. To this day they prevent development of an open-source driver, using digital signatures (based on cryptographic keys), required by their GPUs before loading the firmware in the drivers. Just so Linux can not develop a proper NVIDIA driver. Even when Steam can now play almost any game on Linux. As market leaders (80% discrete GPU market share), NVIDIA has hurt FOSS and Linux adoption for decades now. They use the proprietary driver to force data collection and licensing terms. Can you believe their license states if NVIDIA auto-updates their driver and bricks your system, the only one responsible is still the user ?
Yrs ago we had some companies not just want veto over our reviews but they wanted full editorial oversight
And some tried to insist we only do tests only by their explicit instructions etc or they would blacklist us.
We told them to shove it up their asses and we havnt had a direct nvidia card in many years.
The only reason youtube is more regulated is because its worldwide unlike new stations in North America
Hardware raytracing is both supercool and not a big deal. So both HU and you are right. :D
He said "hardon" =D
Ooh sh*t here we go again...
I know reviewers always say it's better to have pre launch review samples to make videos on because if you had to wait and buy the product on store shelves, then there's no point because everyone else who actually got review samples will already have their videos out. However, if everyone else (or even most of them) are being manipulated by the hardware maker to release favorable reviews, then I think you'd be better off buying the product and releasing a late review because then everyone knows for absolutely sure your not being manipulated for a favorable review, because hardware makes can't stop you from saying whatever you want at that point...
my humble opinion:
Ban early reviews entirely, all who engage in early review should be fined 10% of their yearly international revenue and 20% on repeat offense, just a simple EU fine - oh both the company AND the reviewers.
Let everyone get the item at the same time, and those who are the best content creators will be the ones with the most success, not the ones hand picked by the company.
Things that may or may work if you can create fair regulations:
- Limited presale, give control of a limited sample to at least 10 3rd party sellers who then sell it for maybe a bit of a premium. And again to regulate, the fine is 10% of international revenue, 20% on repeat offense.
@@ayoCC wait punish reviewers for companies being shitty?
@@sovietmoose5624 stop the practice altogether to not have anyone release product reviews before other people can, gaining an unfair market advantage.
Also to prevent loopholes where some reviewers might have an early look
UA-cam reviews, amazon reviews, basically all reviews, have been basically useless for most products for at least 5 years now unless you already knew channels well before then that are still running and have some trust remaining. Bought and owned by marketing departments, we live in a sad timeline.
I mean, if there's no push-back from the community, they aren't going to have any motivation to change their ways.
Oh my.4:18 - 4:36 - why is a company ever in the position of having to do (or even threaten) layoffs just at the whim of the market? (and I haven't even seen the rest of the video segment yet!) Doesn't that indicate that the company isn't robust in its product quality? In addition, relating to the section starting at 14:08, I would like to suggest something for companies that want to be so hard-line about how their products are presented. Perhaps every single tech review company should stop reviewing their products, and state why, very clearly and emphatically. I agree with Linus here, that a review company and other UA-cam channels should be free to express a view on a product, even if it might not be entirely favourable. I had a worse expression, but I need to consider the almighty beeping machine too. 😁
love u linus xoxo
Companies that pull shit like this need to be publically shamed and bashed for it. Not everybody working for Nvidia or Intel is an asshole, but public shaming is the only way these big corps will actually listen and change things.
It's either LG or Samsung lol
I know I'm late to this video, but could LTT Labs do the testing of embargoed hardware on behalf of smaller creators and then give them the results to review?
No. It would constitute breach of contract.
Legit Q: how hard would it be to change the light color in post to be what they wanted?
I'm not sure it's possible. Hue shifting an object is easy enough, hue shifting light is extremely difficult to impossible, as it isn't in a specific area or even a specific hue, the light takes on part of the color of stuff it bounces off of. This completely breaks all methods of hue shifting that I know of.
For some colors it is possible, but considering the light was red, it's probably impossible to change it without altering the color of human skin.
What you do as a tech review community is not cover their products. No one reviews them. Force them to spend their own money marketing their product.
This isnt different cultural norms. Its that some companies are deceitful, and they don't like being publicly called on that, cuz of course a liar doesn't want to be revealed.
I'm guessing from the existence of ethics and morals, hardware unboxed is not that other unbox channel with the scammer giving away non existent iphones and such.
Hypetrains create this kind phenomenons. If people at large wait for the actual tech shipped to consumers and independent honest reviewers to prove itself companys will start to focus on what actually matters.
No preorders my dudes.
thanks
was he talking about lg and samsung?
Pc hardware companies may in fact do what you guys say they're doing but to be fair there is a level of scrutiny held to Microsoft, Nvidia, and Intel that doesn't seem to be held against their competitors by the UA-cam pc hardware reviewers. Don't believe me, go look at all their channel video pages and see who appears most in the thumbnails, and in what context they appear. There has been a major shift from reviewing to policing and some of these channels are out for blood on these companies. Some channels even doing multi-part series on hardware or customer service mistakes going as far as demanding statements from these companies, performing very limited bias testing scenarios, all for the thrill of "sticking it to the man". This form of media sells, the negativity sells, and there is plenty of blame to be shared in this space.