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Gamers Nexus - The Problem with Linus Tech Tips: Accuracy, Ethics, & Responsibility

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I dont watch Linus, but have heard about him. I've only watched a handful or Jesus videos when someone on Gaf posts something. I find his videos (though too techie for me), still entertaining to watch.

  • LTT's most recent review of a mouse was somehow even worse with them trashing a mouse they werent even given for review. All because they forgot to remove a plastic tape at the bottom of the mouse causing it to lag.
And Linus dude is supposed to be an expert techie? lol. If he bought a new dishwasher, I hope he removed any packaging, manual, and free packet of cleaner before using it.
 

Red5

Member
You say this while they make good content. Mistakes, yes. Good production BUT a little rushed at times.

I think it's easy to label Linus as just sole bot or soulless person in this but if you listen to their shows regularly, he has some good practices and is clearly flawed by his own words.

GN did a great job and hopefully a little more diligence will be taken AND he holds himself and his team more accountable. I'm pretty none of us know what's it's like to manage a 100 person and growing company. He gets a little slack while not free from critique.

Fixing their testing methodologies is one thing, but what they did with the Billet Lab cooler and the mouse is just a giant prick move that goes beyond flawed methodologies that need diligence.
 

hinch7

Member
Not into the whole Youtube drama. And Gamers Nexus does go a bit overboard here.. though Steve does go in hard. And does make LMG look really bad.

Its also why I never take their reviews seriously, at least their data. When a large channel such can't even do basic research, lacks common sense (like who reviews a mouse with protective film) and never really show their test methodology, its just better to watch other channels that provide way more useful and indepth information.
 
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Imtjnotu

Member
Oh look drama from the internet


Season 3 Premiere GIF by Jersey Shore Family Vacation
 

SenkiDala

Member
Just reading through a few comments and have seen people saying they will unsub from GN for this "attack" on linus

Season 2 Wtf GIF by Parks and Recreation
Yeah that's crazy... LTT always seemed unprofessional + overrated pricks to me. I remember a review of CRT gaming in 2020s saying "omg it's awesome" while 97% of the video we were just watching their fucking faces and not the actual hardware/result... Ego centrism at its paroxysm.
 

Celcius

°Temp. member
Linus responded on the LTT forums:




"There won't be a big WAN Show segment about this or anything. Most of what I have to say, I've already said, and I've done so privately.

To Steve, I expressed my disappointment that he didn't go through proper journalistic practices in creating this piece. He has my email and number (along with numerous other members of our team) and could have asked me for context that may have proven to be valuable (like the fact that we didn't 'sell' the monoblock, but rather auctioned it for charity due to a miscommunication... AND the fact that while we haven't sent payment yet, we have already agreed to compensate Billet Labs for the cost of their prototype). There are other issues, but I've told him that I won't be drawn into a public sniping match over this and that I'll be continuing to move forward in good faith as part of 'Team Media'. When/if he's ready to do so again I'll be ready.

To my team (and my CEO's team, but realistically I was at the helm for all of these errors, so I need to own it), I stressed the importance of diligence in our work because there are so many eyes on us. We are going through some growing pains - we've been very public about them in the interest of transparency - and it's clear we have some work to do on internal processes and communication. We have already been doing a lot of work internally to clean up our processes, but these things take time. Rome wasn't built in a day, but that's no excuse for sloppiness.

Now, for my community, all I can say is the same things I always say. We know that we're not perfect. We wear our imperfection on our sleeves in the interest of ensuring that we stay accountable to you. But it's sad and unfortunate when this transparency gets warped into a bad thing. The Labs team is hard at work hard creating processes and tools to generate data that will benefit all consumers - a work in progress that is very much not done and that we've communicated needs to be treated as such. Do we have notes under some videos? Yes. Is it because we are striving for transparency/improvement? Yeah... What we're doing hasn't been in many years, if ever.. and we would make a much larger correction if the circumstances merited it. Listing the wrong amount of cache on a table for a CPU review is sloppy, but given that our conclusions are drawn based on our testing, not the spec sheet, it doesn't materially change the recommendation. That doesn't mean these things don't matter. We've set KPIs for our writing/labs team around accuracy, and we are continually installing new checks and balances to ensure that things continue to get better. If you haven't seen the improvement, frankly I wonder if you're really looking for it... The thoroughness that we managed on our last handful of GPU videos is getting really incredible given the limited time we have for these embargoes. I'm REALLY excited about what the future will hold.

With all of that said, I still disagree that the Billet Labs video (not the situation with the return, which I've already addressed above) is an 'accuracy' issue. It's more like I just read the room wrong. We COULD have re-tested it with perfect accuracy, but to do so PROPERLY - accounting for which cases it could be installed in (none) and which radiators it would be plumbed with (again... mystery) would have been impossible... and also didn't affect the conclusion of the video... OR SO I THOUGHT...

I wanted to evaluate it as a product, and as a product, IF it could manage to compete with the temperatures of the highest end blocks on the planet, it still wouldn't make sense to buy... so from my point of view, re-testing it and finding out that yes, it did in fact run cooler made no difference to the conclusion, so it didn't really make a difference.

Adam and I were talking about this today. He advocated for re-testing it regardless of how non-viable it was as a product at the time and I think he expressed really well today why it mattered. It was like making a video about a supercar. It doesn't mater if no one watching will buy it. They just wanna see it rip. I missed that, but it wasn't because I didn't care about the consumer.. it was because I was so focused on how this product impacted a potential buyer. Either way, clearly my bad, but my intention was never to harm Billet Labs. I specifically called out their incredible machining skills because I wanted to see them create something with a viable market for it and was hoping others would appreciate the fineness of the craftsmanship even if the product was impractical. I still hope they move forward building something else because they obviously have talent and I've watched countless niche water cooling vendors come and go. It's an astonishingly unforgiving market.

Either way, I'm sorry I got the community's priorities mixed-up on this one, and that we didn't show the Billet in the best light. Our intention wasn't to hurt anyone. We wanted no one to buy it (because it's an egregious waste of money no matter what temps it runs at) and we wanted Billet to make something marketable (so they can, y'know, eat).

With all of this in mind, it saddens me how quickly the pitchforks were raised over this. It also comes across a touch hypocritical when some basic due diligence could have helped clarify much of it. I have a LONG history of meeting issues head on and I've never been afraid to answer questions, which lands me in hot water regularly, but helps keep me in tune with my peers and with the community. The only reason I can think of not to ask me is because my honest response might be inconvenient.

We can test that... with this post. Will the "It was a mistake (a bad one, but a mistake) and they're taking care of it" reality manage to have the same reach? Let's see if anyone actually wants to know what happened. I hope so, but it's been disheartening seeing how many people were willing to jump on us here. Believe it or not, I'm a real person and so is the rest of my team. We are trying our best, and if what we were doing was easy, everyone would do it. Today sucks.

Thanks for reading this."
 

spons

Gold Member
I stopped watching LTT largely because of the (most likely paid) zero-criticism video on the Oculus Quest in which they basically went off the marketing checklist. Then I realized most of their videos are like this and stopped wasting my time on them.
 

Laieon

Member
LTT is fucking awesome and a lot of fun, but they would also be one of my last sources for actual tech reviews. I like their stuff for everything other than that - give me tech oriented home makeovers (loved watching HGTV growing up and that essentially scratched the same itch), the WAN show is a comfy podcast, and I enjoy the silly antics of his staff.
 
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You say this while they make good content. Mistakes, yes. Good production BUT a little rushed at times.

I think it's easy to label Linus as just sole bot or soulless person in this but if you listen to their shows regularly, he has some good practices and is clearly flawed by his own words.

GN did a great job and hopefully a little more diligence will be taken AND he holds himself and his team more accountable. I'm pretty none of us know what's it's like to manage a 100 person and growing company. He gets a little slack while not free from critique.
Their treatment of Billet Labs is "good practices", right? Come on, lay off the copium. Trash a startup's prototype cooler to millions of viewers using outright flawed testing methodology, then auction off the prototype without permission. That's just inexcusable for a company this size.

In the past, Linus does have his heart in the right place despite his bad takes. However, that's really no longer the case anymore. Their mandate to release so many videos per week is clearly unsustainable and is leading to many rather egregious mistakes, but it's not the fact they make mistakes that's troubling. It's the fact they just brush it off without really fixing or owning up to them because it'll hurt their video performance. Just reeks of arrogance.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Linus responded on the LTT forums:




"There won't be a big WAN Show segment about this or anything. Most of what I have to say, I've already said, and I've done so privately.

To Steve, I expressed my disappointment that he didn't go through proper journalistic practices in creating this piece. He has my email and number (along with numerous other members of our team) and could have asked me for context that may have proven to be valuable (like the fact that we didn't 'sell' the monoblock, but rather auctioned it for charity due to a miscommunication... AND the fact that while we haven't sent payment yet, we have already agreed to compensate Billet Labs for the cost of their prototype). There are other issues, but I've told him that I won't be drawn into a public sniping match over this and that I'll be continuing to move forward in good faith as part of 'Team Media'. When/if he's ready to do so again I'll be ready.

To my team (and my CEO's team, but realistically I was at the helm for all of these errors, so I need to own it), I stressed the importance of diligence in our work because there are so many eyes on us. We are going through some growing pains - we've been very public about them in the interest of transparency - and it's clear we have some work to do on internal processes and communication. We have already been doing a lot of work internally to clean up our processes, but these things take time. Rome wasn't built in a day, but that's no excuse for sloppiness.

Now, for my community, all I can say is the same things I always say. We know that we're not perfect. We wear our imperfection on our sleeves in the interest of ensuring that we stay accountable to you. But it's sad and unfortunate when this transparency gets warped into a bad thing. The Labs team is hard at work hard creating processes and tools to generate data that will benefit all consumers - a work in progress that is very much not done and that we've communicated needs to be treated as such. Do we have notes under some videos? Yes. Is it because we are striving for transparency/improvement? Yeah... What we're doing hasn't been in many years, if ever.. and we would make a much larger correction if the circumstances merited it. Listing the wrong amount of cache on a table for a CPU review is sloppy, but given that our conclusions are drawn based on our testing, not the spec sheet, it doesn't materially change the recommendation. That doesn't mean these things don't matter. We've set KPIs for our writing/labs team around accuracy, and we are continually installing new checks and balances to ensure that things continue to get better. If you haven't seen the improvement, frankly I wonder if you're really looking for it... The thoroughness that we managed on our last handful of GPU videos is getting really incredible given the limited time we have for these embargoes. I'm REALLY excited about what the future will hold.

With all of that said, I still disagree that the Billet Labs video (not the situation with the return, which I've already addressed above) is an 'accuracy' issue. It's more like I just read the room wrong. We COULD have re-tested it with perfect accuracy, but to do so PROPERLY - accounting for which cases it could be installed in (none) and which radiators it would be plumbed with (again... mystery) would have been impossible... and also didn't affect the conclusion of the video... OR SO I THOUGHT...

I wanted to evaluate it as a product, and as a product, IF it could manage to compete with the temperatures of the highest end blocks on the planet, it still wouldn't make sense to buy... so from my point of view, re-testing it and finding out that yes, it did in fact run cooler made no difference to the conclusion, so it didn't really make a difference.

Adam and I were talking about this today. He advocated for re-testing it regardless of how non-viable it was as a product at the time and I think he expressed really well today why it mattered. It was like making a video about a supercar. It doesn't mater if no one watching will buy it. They just wanna see it rip. I missed that, but it wasn't because I didn't care about the consumer.. it was because I was so focused on how this product impacted a potential buyer. Either way, clearly my bad, but my intention was never to harm Billet Labs. I specifically called out their incredible machining skills because I wanted to see them create something with a viable market for it and was hoping others would appreciate the fineness of the craftsmanship even if the product was impractical. I still hope they move forward building something else because they obviously have talent and I've watched countless niche water cooling vendors come and go. It's an astonishingly unforgiving market.

Either way, I'm sorry I got the community's priorities mixed-up on this one, and that we didn't show the Billet in the best light. Our intention wasn't to hurt anyone. We wanted no one to buy it (because it's an egregious waste of money no matter what temps it runs at) and we wanted Billet to make something marketable (so they can, y'know, eat).

With all of this in mind, it saddens me how quickly the pitchforks were raised over this. It also comes across a touch hypocritical when some basic due diligence could have helped clarify much of it. I have a LONG history of meeting issues head on and I've never been afraid to answer questions, which lands me in hot water regularly, but helps keep me in tune with my peers and with the community. The only reason I can think of not to ask me is because my honest response might be inconvenient.

We can test that... with this post. Will the "It was a mistake (a bad one, but a mistake) and they're taking care of it" reality manage to have the same reach? Let's see if anyone actually wants to know what happened. I hope so, but it's been disheartening seeing how many people were willing to jump on us here. Believe it or not, I'm a real person and so is the rest of my team. We are trying our best, and if what we were doing was easy, everyone would do it. Today sucks.

Thanks for reading this."

Not in the least bit convincing, I'm sorry.

Bottom line on the Billet Labs issue is that they should have got out ahead of it publicly. That they didn't, and allowed GN the time to make the issue public is a catastrophically bad error of judgement.

They needed to get it out there and OWN their mistake, as opposed to leaving it as a PR landmine to be placed in their path. GN frankly went far easier on them over this than they needed to; the optics of it are horrible and if they really wanted drama clicks they could simply have pushed this story to the moon.
 

LordOfChaos

Member
I've definitely noticed issues with ltt's accuracy and care for facts over the years. They never really got better about it, always seemed like it wasn't a major consideration and wing facts rather than looking them up. It is for sure an entertaining channel, but not one that cares for a high degree of accuracy.
 
LTT is fucking awesome and a lot of fun, but they would also be one of my last sources for actual tech reviews. I like their stuff for everything other than that - give me tech oriented home makeovers (loved watching HGTV growing up and that essentially scratched the same itch), the WAN show is a comfy podcast, and I enjoy the silly antics of his staff.
Kind of feel the same. Expecting modern day Linus to be more than what he is, is like expecting MKBHD to have the best phone reviews.

They do their job by introducing me to cool and unique products, but I look elsewhere for in depth reviews and so should most people.
 

Rengoku

Member
Linus responded on the LTT forums:


"There won't be a big WAN Show segment about this or anything. Most of what I have to say, I've already said, and I've done so privately.
The fact that he won't acknowledge this issue publicly and properly, and would rather just leave it as a post nestled within a long forum post on an obscure forum seems like a cop out.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I watched almost all of the video and am amazed at how bad Linus' data and ethics are.

And people trust this site for PC info? lol.

Data wrong, screwing over the copper tube company with bad testing and selling their prototype, cant even take off stickers from the bottom of a mouse etc...

Sounds like these guys have no idea what they are doing. Seems like the hosts dont really know anything, but rely on back end tester coworkers to do the digging and they just present the data assuming it's right. Some of the wrong data is hilarious because you'd think all they got to do is post the exact same specs provided by the manufacturer, yet they still ramble on with wrong specs.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
GN and HUB are about the most trusted hardware reviewers....if you care about hardware you should care about these reviewers.
LTT is "the biggest" PC hardware reviwer but I wouldnt say people in the know are very trusting of him and his group.
So yes it is relevant if you care about hardware at all, because if sources are giving you bad data, while also disparaging you from listening to site/people that give more correct data, its a big deal.

Misinformation can alter peoples purchasing habits.


P.S If you dont care about PC hardware at all, why would you even enter a thread about PC hardware reviewers?
detective-conan-shinichi-kudo.gif
ETA Prime is good stuff too for emulation board reviews, micro-PC emulator boxes and portable PC reviews.
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
Fixing their testing methodologies is one thing, but what they did with the Billet Lab cooler and the mouse is just a giant prick move that goes beyond flawed methodologies that need diligence.
I agree.
Their treatment of Billet Labs is "good practices", right? Come on, lay off the copium. Trash a startup's prototype cooler to millions of viewers using outright flawed testing methodology, then auction off the prototype without permission. That's just inexcusable for a company this size.

In the past, Linus does have his heart in the right place despite his bad takes. However, that's really no longer the case anymore. Their mandate to release so many videos per week is clearly unsustainable and is leading to many rather egregious mistakes, but it's not the fact they make mistakes that's troubling. It's the fact they just brush it off without really fixing or owning up to them because it'll hurt their video performance. Just reeks of arrogance.
He's probably a better person than you. Maybe even me. Who cares. He's not perfect. Good channel with room for improvement
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
For anyone who doesnt want to watch the 40 min video, in a nutshell this is what Jesus guy is saying:

Nothing wrong with mistakes. Everyone makes them, BUT

1. There's issues if there's consistent mistakes over and over again

2. The data is wrong and nobody has the intuition to eyeball mistakes notice some test results are wrong

3. Not correcting videos (delete and reupload). Instead, Linus does a feature where the same video is kept up, but they can add an asterisk correction caption at the bottom in text

4. Sticking to their guns a product is shit (the copper tube gadget) even though they didn't even test it for a 30-class gpu. It was meant for it. Instead, they shoehorned it into a 40-class gpu, called it shit and doubled down it would had made no difference

5. Lots of partnership deals out there where they have $$$ on the line and promote/praise brands that sponsor them
 
ETA Prime is good stuff too for emulation board reviews, micro-PC emulator boxes and portable PC reviews.
I got terrible sick of ETA prime too I rarely click his stuff anymore. It's just so samey and positive and never goes in-depth on anything. Everything is "GREAT", "AMAZING", "BEST" and feels like an infomercial.

Edit: One reviewer I went on and off on and have found new levels of respect for in the retro gaming scene at least is MadLittlePixel. He never shies away from speaking the truth. I liked Retro Game Corp for a while there too but all those endless handhelds is a drag.
 
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Kdad

Member
That response Linus posted is just horrible, he would probably have been better off not saying anything than releasing that. It makes him look panicked, rushed, and indignant at the same.

It’s just completely ogre.
I wonder if Linus ran that post past the CEO...a 'Chief Vision Officer' shouldn't be out there making statements about LMG without the CEO being onside...
 

StereoVsn

Member
I got terrible sick of ETA prime too I rarely click his stuff anymore. It's just so samey and positive and never goes in-depth on anything. Everything is "GREAT", "AMAZING", "BEST" and feels like an infomercial.
Yep, there is never any criticism. Phawx as an example is a much better bet for a more objective review.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Who cares you don't repeat the same tests on each benchmark. It doesn't matter.
Hardware channels got stale because hardware is kinda boring recently, so they have to fight.

GN is a great channel but he is so anal and his reviews are so stupidly overcomplicated. Who fkn cares about flatness of cpu and that crap.
He treats this stuff with more seriousness than presidents run their country. chill man, it's just stupid pc parts.
I understand results have to be accurate but running benchmark is what it is... He makes it sound so overcomplicated because that's his life

edit: guys, read my posts below. I know linus is trash. anyone thought otherwise?!
 
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DeepEnigma

Gold Member
I got terrible sick of ETA prime too I rarely click his stuff anymore. It's just so samey and positive and never goes in-depth on anything. Everything is "GREAT", "AMAZING", "BEST" and feels like an infomercial.
That's unfortunate. Stuff was great years ago, admittedly I have not watched a whole lot of recent stuff.
 
What they did to that small GPU cooler startup is disgusting. Stay away from this evil clickbait mafia, boys.

Who cares you don't repeat the same tests on each benchmark. It doesn't matter.
Hardware channels got stale because hardware is kinda boring recently, so they have to fight.

GN is a great channel but he is so anal and his reviews are so stupidly overcomplicated. Who fkn cares about flatness of cpu and that crap.
He treats this stuff with more seriousness than presidents run their country. chill man, it's just stupid pc parts.
I understand results have to be accurate but running benchmark is what it is... He makes it sound so overcomplicated because that's his life
Maybe try watching the video.
 
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diffusionx

Gold Member
I wonder if Linus ran that post past the CEO...a 'Chief Vision Officer' shouldn't be out there making statements about LMG without the CEO being onside...
that’s because he is still the CEO, and he hired a COO to run the day to day. I said in the original thread about this that their setup was weird and it is. Of course neither seem to be doing their jobs right now.
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
I have nothing to add except I’ve never watched this Linus guy as in every single thumb nail I see he has the most weasel looking punchable pube face I’ve ever seen. Not to mention if a preview ever plays his voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard.
 
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rofif

Can’t Git Gud
What they did to that small GPU cooler startup is disgusting. Stay away from this evil clickbait mafia, boys.


Maybe try watching the video.
yeah I did. We all know LTT is trash info, so that's what I am expecting. Have you see the fools he is hiring? Crazy town over there and people who don't know anything about hardware.
GN really likes to go on and on and on but he will always get to the good data and benchmarks. Took him 10 minutes to get to examples here... that's why I find him so anal and annoying. But I cannot fault him for being accurate which he is.

also lol
"This video is not monetized. This video covers our serious concerns regarding the data accuracy of Linus Media Group"
Dude who cares about your ethics. You are fine to earn money on that video. You are not curing diabetes here.
 

Kdad

Member
Who cares you don't repeat the same tests on each benchmark. It doesn't matter.
Hardware channels got stale because hardware is kinda boring recently, so they have to fight.

GN is a great channel but he is so anal and his reviews are so stupidly overcomplicated. Who fkn cares about flatness of cpu and that crap.
He treats this stuff with more seriousness than presidents run their country. chill man, it's just stupid pc parts.
I understand results have to be accurate but running benchmark is what it is... He makes it sound so overcomplicated because that's his life
Sounds more like a problem with presidents.
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
Sounds more like a problem with presidents.
It's still just stupid pc parts.
If someone ONLY watches LTT video and then buys a gpu... he deserves to be scammed lol.
We lean on these yt reviewers for opinion on everything we buy. So at least make good research
 
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