Dubious_FartThe Problem with Linus Tech Tips: Accuracy, Ethics, & Responsibility
I feel like whatever point Steve is trying to make here could have been a community post or even a short rather than what looks like a 45 minute hit piece on his competitor.
This appears (from the thumbnail and first few minutes of content) to be drama for the sake of drama. If anyone can summarise to the contrary, please do.
My first thought, but then I watched it. I saw some criticism for LTT a while ago but never figured out the issue was that bad. They blatantly mislead the viewers with shit information, worse I’ve seen the videos mentioned in the GN video. Gladly I saw the entire GN video and now I’m fully aware, and to say the least I expect an apology from Linus and a hefty compensation to the company that made the cooling block.
Yeah, I just finished watching it. I stand corrected - first impressions aside, Steve raises some important concerns.
I’m also impressed that he voluntarily de-monetized his own video, it goes a long way to highlighting the principles behind the video. Not many content creators literally put their money where their mouth is like that.
I will be interested to see how LMG responds to this.
Honestly, if not with na apology and a promise that they will change policies, plus some compensation to the hurt companies, I will just unsubscribe to them in the future. I’m pro capitalism, I’m pro free market, I understand that a company needs to make money. But if you’re screwing over start ups that are trying to survive on your way, plus use your employees wage as an excuse to do a shit job, you fall.
That is, as they say, the free market at work.
Yup. There’s other channels doing tech reviews, and probably doing a much better job apparently.
That’s literally what Linus does in his post though.
I feel like LTT has earned so much more goodwill than people are giving them right now. Linus particularly seems like an incredibly honest guy.
The tenor of this entire thread is weird to me. LTT is great, and this won’t get me to stop watching them or subscribing.
Linus has posted a response on the LTT forums:
From his response:
To Steve, I expressed my disappointment that he didn’t go through proper journalistic practices in creating this piece
I’d be interested to hear what Linus considers to be proper journalistic practice in that case.
The rest of his response goes some way to addressing a few of the concerns raised, but I feel this is going to turn into another “Trust me Bro” debacle (i.e. he cannot seem to take criticism on the chin, no matter how valid or invalid it may be).
I get it a tiny bit. Normal journalist practice would be to reach out for comment on a piece like this. Doesn’t and wouldn’t change the accuracy of the content though.
Okay asking LTT-s CEO (not him btw) would’ve helped, on the other hand nothing he wrote in the comments about “”“”“commiting payment”“”“”“” to Billit made the case look any better.