According to Billet themselves, they heard nothing about compensation or payback until about 3 hours after the original GN video went live… Which Billet hadnt even replied to before Linus made his post saying they’ve already made the deal on compensation.

  • This response has made me lose so much respect for LTT. Linus really needs to learn when to shut up and stop digging himself into these holes. He could have just apologized, compensated Billet properly and worked on fixing whatever communication issues his team has, but instead he wrote a long non-apology where he deflected blame, tripled down on the Billet situation and just straight up lied about compensating them. Very scummy behaviour from Linus.

    • Linus is a narcissist.

      Narcissists have to prove how wrong everyone else was.

      They have to control the narrative.

      And when all else fails, they have to make themselves look like the victim, so they get all the positive attention.

      Thats why he cant shut up, and always doubles down to make everything worse.

      • I’m not either for narcissistic behavior or ADHD being the cause.

        I have several TBIs (traumatic brain induries) and I act like he does sometimes. Most of the time I can catch myself but everyone once in a while I’ll go into full “you’re all wrong, I’m right and stop hating on me” mode even when I am wrong. But I always admit I’m wrong afterwards.

        It’s a maturity and, hate to say it, grace thing. Even when you mess up this bad, and then do it again, and then a third time, you have to step up and admit you made a mistake.

        I have brain damage and I can do it. It’s just learning how to do it. Making that effort. I don’t think he knows how to do it or has never fucked up bad enough to want to learn how to admit to mistakes, or the reactions have never been negative enough for him to own up to it.

        Either way - he messed up and should sit and think about it before doing anything else. He didn’t do that and it’s going to cost him. Maybe not a lot but something.

    •  CoderKat   ( @CoderKat@lemm.ee ) 
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      310 months ago

      Yeah, apologizing, paying Billet, and promising to slow down to improve quality would have been the perfect response. That would have been enough to keep me watching. But with the way he responded instead, I unsubbed and will avoid their videos, because he’s made it clear he can’t be trusted and doesn’t deserve my money.

      And I was the perfect kind of viewer. I have money, have bought things from YouTube sponsorships, have Patreoned people, and I’ve actually been considering buying stuff from LTT’s store for a while (the only thing that stopped me was that their best shirts were sold out).

      I suspect that for the most part, the kinds of people who would pay to support otherwise free content are those who are more informed and also care highly about the quality of what they pay for. The only reason I Patreon to stuff is because the creator has high quality and good ethics. I’m not gonna give money for no reason to someone who can’t be bothered to act ethically.

    •  Awe   ( @Awe@lemmy.ml ) 
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      311 months ago

      While this definitely wasn’t an okay response, I still prefer this transparency over every single response having to go through a filter/PR representative. At least we are closer to knowing what he is actually thinking.

      Is this the straw that leads to LTT going full corporate mode?

  •  net00   ( @net00@lemm.ee ) 
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    6011 months ago

    Money and fame went to linus’ head, didn’t think it would happen considering they preach to be transparent but here it is.

    If only that bald guy at LTT would have kept his mouth shut about how their testing was better than GN/Hardware Unboxed, all this drama wouldn’t have blown up on ltt’s face LMFAO

  •  Vlyn   ( @Vlyn@lemmy.zip ) 
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    4911 months ago

    The quality was already going down, but now I’m unsubbed and I’ll never click on a LTT video again. Sorry, but this behavior is just unacceptable.

    “We didn’t sell it, we auctioned it”, Jesus H. fucking Christ.

  • I’ve enjoyed LTT for a long time. The quality definitely went down, which I had chalked up to growing pains.

    But this is different. This is an absolute loss of trust from me, especially the response Linus posted. What a shame.

    GN has another subscriber, though.

  • If now was a time to bring in a full time CEO and relegate Linus into “creative director”, or whatever title he wants to give himself, now is that time.

    GN has simply pulled back the curtain to show another corporation who put their bottom line before their viewers. And his response only shows this even further.

    Truly disappointed by the whole debacle.

  •  Skimmer   ( @Skimmer@lemmy.zip ) 
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    11 months ago

    So incredibly disappointing, I thought Linus was smart, but instead of just owning up to his mistakes and making a proper apology, he just doubled down and dug his own grave even further. If he had just apologized and explained how he would do better and make things right, and how he would prevent these mistakes from happening again, I’m sure a lot of people would’ve gave him another chance, but he really showed him and his company’s true colors.

    This is very sad to see, I was definitely a fan of LTT and enjoyed their videos, I watched and supported them for years, but now I’ll no longer be watching or trusting them after this. Its heartbreaking.

      •  Skimmer   ( @Skimmer@lemmy.zip ) 
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        11 months ago

        I’ve only seen clips of it here and there, never fully watched or listened, but definitely seems pretty bad based on what I’m hearing…

        Too bad he’s like this, honestly the guy’s definitely talented and makes good content (if he actually puts the work and proper time in), but seems he’s just way too arrogant to admit when he’s wrong. I just expected more honestly, just sad to see after being a viewer for this long, and always getting the impression that he was transparent and more down to earth, which now its evident the opposite is true.

    • The apparent transparency was something that stood out to me as a major respectable plus of the channel. These actions and responses are not at all in line with my understanding of the channel, and I’m mostly just sad. If I dont trust the content, I won’t watch. I just wish Linus in particular had stepped back to realize what he was throwing away.

  •  Syo   ( @Syo@kbin.social ) 
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    1811 months ago

    LTT has grown to the point they can not act as equal to any small time team or start up. Linus decision has consequence larger than he can afford by pretending “I’m just another tech youtuber”. With 100+ employee, and far outsized influence in tech, LTT must be professional in their decisions.

  •  salton   ( @salton@reddthat.com ) 
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    11 months ago

    I may just be emotionally distanced enough from the channel to feel this way but I feel like this just isn’t that big of a deal. At worst everything seems like negligence and/or incompetence and I don’t see his main audience caring unless they already have a few bones to pick with Linus personally like a lot of people in these comments seem to.

    • The cover up is worse than the crime. Being wrong like that is bad, but it’s fixable and understandable the way the company is growing. Selling the prototype is a huge deal, both ethically and for future collaborations. But his statement after the fact stopped me from re-subbing to Floatplane. The response pissed me off.

    • Occasional inaccuracies/mistakes are to be expected and are excusable; but a regular and consistent pattern of these mistakes bridges the gap to willful, almost intentional, negligence.

      That is not ok. (and is a huge part of why I don’t regularly watch LTT anymore.)

      LTT has chosen to focus on quantity instead of quality, so much so that the quality has slipped well below what many find useful/helpful. Having lots of content isn’t beneficial if none of that content holds any value so far fewer people want to watch it.

      I think pretty much any creator can agree 1 banger video with 100m views is far better than producing 100videos each only getting 1m.

      Put more effort into quality; then reaching that self-imposed weekly video count won’t be so important to the bottom line.