At least, some of the recent controversies.
Big shout out to them leaving the links to LTT merch in the description. Venal fucks.
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They definitely have a default description set. Bitching about that kind of small detail is pointless when there are plenty of more serious things to talk about.
It’s not a small detail and it’s not pointless to point it out.
When you messed up so big, you wanna make sure your “we got this, folks” video is impeccable.
I mean, it’s another example of the lack of attention to detail and rushing, but yeah.
Yeah, people keep making excuses for them.
“There isn’t enough time, they have to eat and drink and sleep”
Then delay the video until it’s done. That’s part of the core issues that kicked this whole episode off. Them rushing out videos without care.
How about the multiple merch plugs in the video itself or that the video was monetized, in direct contrast to the original video from GN not being monetized?
Perhaps, but I see it as indicative of the problem in general. A slapdash attitude where they don’t pause for a second to consider what they’re actually doing, which, you’d think they might try and do under a 20 minute video where they grovel and scrape and beg forgiveness.
100% this. Whoever is in charge of uploads is almost definitely using a macro to auto-fill every description. If you look, the description credits the intro/outro music which weren’t even used in this video at all.
Most YT channels do this, very few big channels actually put anything besides their own links in descriptions.
The part witch Nick plugging LTT store was cringe
EDIT: did not know about the allegations from the former employee and it just saddens me. I was only aware of the cooling block and it’s auctioning when I wrote this.
This thread you made is cringe. Grow tf up and try to have some understanding for once in a while.
Big corporations will always pull fake apologies and complain that consumers are beligerent little hotheads who’s opinion doesn’t matter in the long run. You’re proving their point right now.
But if say LTT actually does pull out of this amicably and their words are followed by prompt action that remedies the situation, we can in turn look at Intel, AMD, Nvidia and the likes and say “see? That’s how it’s done”.
As tech jesus himself said in his expose video is that we all make mistakes.
Do not attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity, and the way LMG has been working has been stupid.
Don’t give the bastards an inch, I understand. But let us be clear about who the bastards are and I still don’t think LMG has gone over to the side of evil.
Now they’re stepping back, taking the time to make amens (I hope they really give that company they shafted a much needed boost for instance, as a bare minimum) and we should be here for that.
If you’re just here to whine, fine. But don’t think you’re adding to the conversation or saying anything meaningful, because you are in fact just trolling.
Again, try and have some understanding. It’s very important for us to do that, because secterianism and feudes will in the end hurt the community, and also the consumer, because we have to stay on top of this.
Ooohhh fanboys doing (presumably) unpaid PR work in the comments!
Does this mean lemmy has “made it”?
Hey folks, looks like we found Linus’s Kbin account!
So I just watched the entire team apologize for Linus and then Linus proceeded to attempt to gaslight everyone watching.
Fuck this guy.
Monetizing an apology video of all things says it all.
From the majority of the team, this is a pretty good and textbook PR mea culpa. “Here’s how we screwed up, here’s how we’re fixing it.”
The pushing the merch was tone-deaf and the defensive whining from Linus was NOT on-point, though. I appreciate it ended with “how I’m going to fix it,” but he should keep the defensive shit to himself.
It would be better if the CEO could learn to read a prompter so it looks like he’s not reading one.
This is pretty annoying to watch with his eyes looking above the camera and going left and right constantly.
Still better than the labs guy who just sounded like a robot
To be fair to them, they aren’t hosts. Its glaringly obvious they are not in-front-of-camera people. It does feel like its done on purpose to appeal emotionally.
@Chozo The end of the video:
But Dbrand did offer
… is basically advertisement for the brand, packed into “a joke”. Why would they mention it otherwise?
And the video itself is monetized.
Guess, I am out of the loop.
After Linus blasted people using ad-blockers (fucking hypocrite), I uh, just blocked his channel.
When did he do that?
About a year ago.
The uh, irony… is this:
Believe it or not, I think he has a point and isn’t at all a hypocrite. He’d show you how to pirate and torrent stuff (and has before) while also telling you he doesn’t recommend stealing. What he was saying is that the content isn’t meant to be free. The ads pay for the content. So not watching ads means the producer doesn’t get paid. Its a soft form of piracy but he wasn’t telling you what to do about that. He just said “Be aware you’re not giving people anything for their content”. I don’t know why thats controversial, he’s not even suggesting its illegal or even immoral. I never understood the arguments here but I also dont visit twitter
I do not block ads. I however use Privacy Badger to block tracking cookies, which means that I don’t see ads. I will see all ads that are not tracking me, which seems to be none. Is protecting my privacy also piracy?
It is, yes. It’s a separate conversation of if it should be illegal or immoral to keep your privacy this way. But as long as you are violating the intended method of revenue for the content you’re viewing, that’s piracy to me.
I think most people hear piracy and think it’s immoral or illegal, but there are very valid reasons to pirate content such as game and movie preservation.
Yup, illegal does not mean immoral or unethical. It just means some rich or powerful person doesn’t like what you’re doing. There’s a lot of overlap, of course. Many illegal acts are also immoral or unethical. But it’s not a 100% overlapping Venn diagram. Also YT is kind of evil, so it’s piracy against an evil corporation as much as the content creator. The smarter content creators have sponsors and embedded ads and don’t rely on YT for anything.
The implicit contract is to show an ad for a service, but they are actually violating the contract by attaching other things to the ads. They then use the ads to steal information that they then sell without my consent. So, if anything we are discussing honor amongst thieves.
It’s not like you see the ads that have trackers, they get blocked. So it’s still part of the agreement sort of. And you’re also aware that it’s revenue for them. People assume it’s a moral argument, it’s not. You can pirate from absolutely evil people, but it’s still piracy. That’s why I don’t view it as worth arguing over for the most part. I WANT people to realize that it’s piracy but that they’re actually doing something ethical.
Piracy I associate as an illegal act that carries penalties of fines and imprisonment. Like real piracy…
As blocking is legal and something even the FBI recommends. This is more a website shortcoming than an act of piracy. Which if blocking ads is piracy then at that point the word just becomes diluted, and at that point who even cares.
Which if blocking ads is piracy then at that point the word just becomes diluted, and at that point who even cares.
Isn’t “taking something without paying” what piracy is? With YouTube, the “payment” is your time spent watching an ad. If you bypass that “payment”, are you not effectively pirating the content?
It doesn’t seem that diluted to me. I actually agree with Linus’s take that adblocking is piracy. It’s just a much more socially and legally-acceptable form of piracy.
If anything, I feel like adblocking on YouTube does even more direct damage to content creators than pirating blockbuster movies does to movie studios, honestly. If ten thousand people pirate a new Marvel movie, Disney’s not going to hurt too bad from that. But if ten thousand people adblock a YouTuber, that can significantly hurt their income by damaging their ad impression ranking. Advertisers on YouTube set their rates based on the engagement they get from a channel, and drops in engagement will typically result in drops in CPM.
It’s the reason I pay for YouTube Premium, myself. I use YouTube pretty much all day long, and I want the creators whose content I spend my day watching to get paid for their work. And if not for YTP, I would 100% be adblocking YouTube, otherwise.
That’s a whole lot of words for what in the end is not piracy with no laws being broken. There’s a difference between a moral argument and law breaking.
If I tune into an NFL game using an OTA antenna, then turn off my TV during commercials and turn it back on for the game, would that be piracy?
Possibly a hot take, but as I understand it, content creators of his size should be viewed that the viewer is the product, content creator is the seller, and the sponsor/advertiser is the buyer. It’s the content creators job to sell our eye balls and brain space. However, just as a fish resists being captured by a fisher, I resist being sold. Adblocking is my resistance as a product. So producers of said product need to work harder to get enough of their product to be profitable. Should their be a drought, or if my tools are not maintained properly, then is it stealing if my crops die? Did my wheat fields steal from me when they didn’t grow enough for me to be a profitable farmer? I am the product being sold, I don’t “owe” them anything for harvesting me. It’s up to THEM to make my eyes and data worth harvesting to be sold to advertisers.
I see what you mean but I don’t agree. The deal being made here is obvious and you’re signing up to give them data in exchange for watching a video. You’re also signing up to view their ads. You have an option not to be the product at all. You already have the wheat, but you’re giving the middleman less than what was arranged, not just producing less.
And if you view it as okay to not give them what they’re asking for while getting the content anyways, that’s chill. Just recognize that you’re paying less for the content than they’re asking. This is even more enforced by YouTube and news papers who charge for ad free experiences.
The deal being made here is obvious and you’re signing up to give them data in exchange for watching a video. You’re also signing up to view their ads.
I don’t buy this rhetoric. By your view, then if I don’t watch an ad, then I don’t get the content. Yet on YouTube I get the content inspite of declining to view the ad. Some websites do not let me see the content, unless I see their ads. That’s fine, I just go to a different site or spend my time doing something else. This rhetoric is to help businesses make money, which is fine, but I have no interest in furthering their narrative. If websites block me from using ad block, then it is entirely within their right to deny me access to their content. *
If you are not paying for a good or service, you are the product. That is my claim. The ad is not the price paid, it is the medium someone is using to collect my market value. Were I to walk to a store, and tell them I wanted something in exchange for seeing their billboard on the highway I’d be laughed out the building.
*Yes there are ways around this, but I think that is outside the scope of this discussion on ads.
I want to be clear still, piracy isn’t a problem or wrong necessarily. I’m not pushing a corporate narrative by saying this, I’m more concerned about creators and other sites that use ads for revenue such as newspapers. So if you want to “pay” a site without money, don’t pirate their content. That’s all. That’s similar to what Linus has said.
But I think this is somewhat similar to asking you for a ticket at the door for a movie. If the “ticket” is watching the ad and they’re asking you to buy the ticket (with premium) or get it from ads, bypassing the doorman would mean it’s piracy. Doesn’t even matter if the doorman doesn’t try to stop you. Doesn’t matter if they don’t pull you out of the movie.
You being the product is irrelevant to the piracy thing. But it is relevant to the moral thing
Actions speak louder than words…
Their action was to monetize the apology video, which is especially funny after Gamers Nexus explicitely didn’t monetize their video. They advertised their shop and floatplane and teased a new product. Just incredible.
I loved LMG and watched their videos for years, but if you are going to put out false or exaggerated data knowingly, or auction off a one of a kind prototype, would pass me off but I might tune in from time to time for the entertainment.
But if you are called out on this and instead of trying to do the right thing you double down and even straight up lie to try to make a case where you aren’t the bad guy, then I am done with LMG channels as I can not support a company with this clown.
I don’t know, Linus is still trying to excuse and justify. It would seem taking him out of the driver’s seat was the right call. As for the rest, they are responding because their backs are against the wall. Time will tell if they will really make any changes.
The fact they’re still hiding their testing methodologies behind floatplane makes me dubious of how effective this “housekeeping” week will be. Not that I plan on watching or interacting with anything LMG related going forward until the allegations brought up by Madison are properly handled anyway, in which then my final decision will be made.
Where can I see these allegations from Madison? I must have missed them.
Edit: I found them, right under this post on my front page lol.
Well that really hurts to read :( Madison was one of my favorites
I always assumed this guy was a d-bag.
Brought to you by our sponsor, dbrand.
Other than the Madison Reeves post I just read, I am completely out of the loop on the LTT controversy. That said, I made it about 1/3 of the way through the video before I had to stop it. I know very little about these guys but that video is infuriating.
Short and sweet summary as called out by Gamers Nexus:
- Testing methodology sux and results are not sanity checked, thereby misleading consumers.
- If errors are caught, they are corrected poorly and acknowledged with asterisks or in description, which does not put enough of a spotlight on it.
- Trashing on a small company (billet labs) that makes dope coolers for performing poorly due to improper testing and not retesting because “I don’t wanna spend 500 bucks”
- Not returning the prototype which was sent to them by billet labs for testing and AUCTIONING IT OFF (allegedly to a potential competitor) at LTX.
Just recently a creator I watch talked about how YouTubers sometimes create drama between each other to gain more relevance. Then they go for drinks together. Is this the case here? No way to realistically know for sure.
Probably not from Gamers Nexus’ side of things. Their video is very professional, and focuses on the damage done to other companies featured on the channel, and challenges LTT and LMG to be more professional. They also said in their followup that they won’t be making any more videos on the topic, their goal was to raise awareness, and now it’s LTT’s responsibility to decide what to change, if anything. Is LTT playing it up as drama? Maybe, but I think it’s more likely that they want it treated as drama rather than legitimate criticism so that they can ignore it and move on, rather than to increase attention/ relevance.
I don’t think Gamers Nexus would do something like that, they have a good history of calling out companies for bullshit they try and pull. doing that would damage their reputation.
I am carefully optimistic about this. They addressed the problems and seem to take some time to fix them. I hope they will focus on quality over quantity as they promised.
It’s damage control.
Of course it is. But admitting errors and avoiding to make them again is a pretty effective form of damage control, and it is the kind we should want from any company.
The problem is the founder is still a thin-skinned whiny jerk that made it about ‘his poor feelings’ and doubled down.
When everyone else in a video is doing the right thing, and the founder is not, you can bet there’s a huge toxic culture that a dedicated, but peripheral group is trying to work around - and Madison’s tweets show that there’s a hell of a lot more toxicity than just their ethical and editorial failings.
The problem is the founder is still a thin-skinned whiny jerk that made it about ‘his poor feelings’ and doubled down.
That’s not at all what happened, and I think you’re seriously lacking empathy here. He explained he reacted emotionally, and he’s still emotional. This is in no small part his baby. He made the decision to step down before this ever happened because he wanted someone that could do it better at the helm, he realized he had been promoted past his competency, that’s not nothing.
People just love drama…
Wow, well, that’s one way to attempt to rewrite history. Either you are uninformed, misinformed, or delusional. I suggest you read some of the LTT related topics on the front page.
Try just watching the video. Linus is to my eye being extremely genuine.
I don’t get the absurd crusade to crucify someone one barely knows for a situation one barely understands in the name of what… Some self indulgent moral superiority?
It happens every time. “Big publicly recognized figure/company/whatever makes a mistake” and everyone wants their life ruined, speculates to infinity and beyond, and writes off their humanity, etc. And it’s happening over increasingly trivial things.
It’s an internet mob out on a witch hunt and it’s disgusting. This dude and his wife built a company from nothing that has been good to many many people from everything I’ve taken in over the years. They didn’t kill anyone, they screwed up some data in a YouTube video, an employee sold something they shouldn’t have (which Linus then tried to rectify), and some allegations have been made without proof by one former employee with no information from the LTT side (and no proof Linus or his team knew anything about the situation or its severity). Meanwhile, y’all are out here screaming for the demise of the whole damn thing, and to screw any second chances. It’s a completely disproportionate and unjustified response.
I absolutely hate to see people treat other people in this way.
There is tons of info in this thread about what happened. None of that was a mistake.
Apparently you are just misinformed and seem to have no will to take in the relevant information, which renders your opinion on the matter meaningless.
