I don't really watch LTT anymore. Back when I was a teenager I used to watch them all the time and Linus inspired me to build my first PC when I was a kid. I've been watching them on and off again for well over a decade.
Recently, the few times I have watched them I noticed how rushed some of the videos are (one of the graphics card reviews has Linus talking to a webcam in a hotel room ???) and how many of the videos have a comment addressing some mistake in the video. It honestly seemed like almost every video I watched was them phoning it in, as if the presenters have been given a brand new device to make a video about and then given 1 hour to complete the video. Sloppy all around. These days the videos I enjoy the most are their reviews of interesting networking gear and Linus' home upgrades because it gives me a lot of inspiration and ideas for what I want to do at home.
It's nice to have Steve basically validate my vague emotional impression of sloppiness with an evidence backed video. Steve is right, both in terms of his criticisms but also in his explicit warning that the video is NOT meant to be drama, rather it's coming from a place of a constructive criticism and accountability -- like a family intervention. It's a shame so many people online are 'taking sides' when it's not one of those scenarios. The only way you come out of this defending LMG is if you're putting on the blinders and treating it like a hit piece. People throwing around accusations of "Steve is jealous of LMG" are seriously deluded.
Before watching the video my first thought was why not contact LMG directly to avoid any potential drama but it's easy to forget (as Steve points out) that LMG is a 120+ employee company, not just Linus and Luke sitting in a house somewhere like the videos from 2012. If the company in question was Nvidia, AMD, MSI, or anyone else, Gamers Nexus would make a similarly constructed video about it because it's in the community's interest to know -- and absolutely nobody would question the decision.
The real indictment moment is not even the much talked about Billet Labs controversy. Instead for me it was when GN played the clip of basically every core LMG employee (including Linus himself, back when he was still CEO) saying there's not enough time to do everything properly and they wish to prioritize quality over quantity. The word that comes to mind again is sloppiness. If you all felt that way including Linus, the CEO literally running the show, why not do something about it? If I were to play devil's advocate I would think the concern at LMG is backing off on quantity may hurt their algorithm, decrease viewcount, and thereby decrease revenue. Again, it's a company, and the last thing they want to do is have to let people go and begin the process of degrowth because the momentum slows. That's unlikely to be the case though.
@Wokis quote about Linus wanting LTT to be the Top Gear or tech makes a lot of sense and honestly I have no problem with that, only you have to know when to toe the line and when to invest the bare minimum of work both in the content (like reading the manual for Billet Labs' heatsink) and in administration (like bothering to check if Billet Labs wanted their heatsink back).
There's really no excuse, they have to do better. There's no way Linus responds with anything at minimum other than "Steve is right, the reviews are sloppy and we have a lot of work to do. We're sorry to the community, Steve, and Billet Labs." As for the clip from the beginning of the video showing a Lab employee say something like "Unlike Gamers Nexus and the others we have a standardized process that produces test results from scratch every time" or whatever, I reckon Linus will excuse that comment as expressing Labs' goal of
eventually getting to that point -- I'm perfectly happy with that response because that's kinda how I interpreted that comment too. It's obvious Labs isn't at a fully working state right now. As for how he'll address the other issues like conflicts of interest with various companies, I don't know.
Also it's sad Steve had to make those comments about how this could hurt GN because he's right: firstly this may damage his relationship with Linus (who doesn't have the best reputation of backing down from a slight against him) depending on his response and secondly the comment about "big streamers that are friends with Linus" is absolutely a reference to xQc's army of viewers that may swarm GN with hate because they think it's a 'beef' video rather than a highly agreeable mostly objective critique.
In conclusion Steve and GN did the right thing and I can't find a single element of their video that is incorrect. It's all on Linus now, the worst thing they can do is have their new CEO issue a press release on behalf of the company because I think that will anger the audience even more lol.
these days I think i'm going to write a couple sentences on MR and then end up writing a damn essay. 70% of the time i finish writing it and then delete it all before publishing because i think it's too long and pointless smh lol, sorry for the long read
