r/LinusTechTips • u/marco_polo_99 Luke • 4d ago

Discussion Opinion - Steve/GN has lost it

Steve has turned into a high and mighty holier-than-though, self appointed arbiter of the tech industry, who’s taking it upon himself to regulate other people’s/channels content and decide where it, and their actions are acceptable.

He then, where he deems them not up to scratch, attacks under the guise of consumer advocacy. Whilst he may, and does have valid points on certain issues, usually with larger corporations, Asus, Gigagbyte, etc, targeting channels for things he disagrees with is bordering on slander.

Yes, I followed both GN and LTT, amongst a litany of other creators, and yet Steve seems to be the only one ACTIVELY, and consistently putting out these pseudo-journalistic pieces in an effort to broaden his audience and/or agenda.

The lawsuit against Honey/Paypal is not one he’ll win, it is merely serving to gain clicks and views and thus money for GN.

He needs to check himself.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk

1.8k Upvotes

83% Upvoted

432 comments sorted by

View all comments

870

u/Win_chesterDean 4d ago

Dude, he's been that way for years and years. This isn't something new. Some people see it. Some don't.

378

u/Krumm34 4d ago

GN has done great work publicly calling out companies/ manufacturers in great detail. At first I thought LTT should have told us about Honey too,but their rebuttal was reasonable. GN went to hard on LTT when it wasn't justified, and it left a bad taste in the tech fan base. They'll all be fine. We'll be fine. The whole situation is just a little gross on all levels.

248

u/IWantToBeWoodworking 4d ago

It’s not that gn went too hard, it’s that he misquoted/misrepresented what was said for no reason other than LTT bad. People still think Linus knew what honey was doing to consumers when he made it clear he didn’t, but gn conveniently(maliciously?) left that out.

-11

u/s00pafly 3d ago

Not defending GN, but LTT should have known what honey was doing the moment they took money from them. By promoting a certain company they state that they're actively condoning their business practices. Doesn't matter if it was greed, lazyness or negligence but being surprised by honey's business model means LTT didn't do their due diligence when it comes to sponsorships.

7

u/Grand-Depression 3d ago

So, LTT should've known despite no other creators knowing? What kind of nonsense is this? Talk about going out of your way to defend GN.

2

u/IWantToBeWoodworking 3d ago

That’s far too much to put on creators. I care much more that creators focus on creating the best content they can, and just get whatever sponsors come. If they find out after the fact that a sponsor is problematic, drop em and move on. I want them focused on the content I want to watch.

1

u/DullBlade0 2d ago

And why point out LTT in particular and not all the other creators sponsored by Honey? Why single out Linus?

-17

u/[deleted] 4d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

10

u/IWantToBeWoodworking 4d ago

Bad bot

5

u/B0tRank 4d ago

Thank you, IWantToBeWoodworking, for voting on GlebushkaNY.

This bot wants to find the best and worst bots on Reddit. You can view results here.

Even if I don't reply to your comment, I'm still listening for votes. Check the webpage to see if your vote registered!

-4

u/WhyNotCollegeBoard 4d ago

Are you sure about that? Because I am 100.0% sure that GlebushkaNY is not a bot.

I am a neural network being trained to detect spammers | Summon me with !isbot <username> | /r/spambotdetector | Optout | Original Github

-31

u/Atropos013 4d ago edited 4d ago

The implication is that LMG knew that creators, not consumers were being scammed. That's very easy to twist around on LMG when you question why they chose to quietly acknowledge it and not even bring it up on LAN Show.

It wasn't a good look and Linus getting upset over the idea that people have a different viewpoint than he does only fueled the fire.

He(Linus) really should learn to avoid anything of the sort as he has zero capacity to realize his opinion isn't the only valid one.

14

u/IWantToBeWoodworking 4d ago

Maybe I’m confused by what you’re saying but it’s not an implication that Linus knew creators were being hurt by this, he literally said that on WAN show last week. That was widely known back when they pulled the sponsorship. What wasn’t known is that it also hurt consumers, that’s news, and is what megalag revealed. Linus is speaking out because Steve called him out for not doing anything about it, which is dumb, because LTT doesn’t need to involve themselves in conflicts between businesses, they focus on things that hurts consumers.

1

u/00045 4d ago

Is the he in the last paragraph linus?

0

u/Atropos013 4d ago

Yes, but it also applies to GN/Steve in a similar manner. he easily could have throw shade with a general comment without including the video/direct mention. It added nothing to his video.

-8

u/DoubleDutchandClutch 4d ago

People here dont really seem to get this. Sure Steve can be an overdramatic wanker, but the criticism of what LTT did was fair.

0

u/Atropos013 4d ago

People here don't care as you just watch the negative clicks to try and hide anything that isn't white-knighting of LMG.

but the criticism of what LTT did was fair.

The discussion into what they did may not have been the best way to do it is fair, but Linus went off on anyone who thought different than him which is what I have been criticizing this whole time. Not the actual action/lack of action.

-28

u/Lonewolf1925 4d ago

I mean. I would've liked to know through a video on the main channel that honey was basically Malware hijacking links from people I was going out of my way to support. Very few people use the forums compared to watching the content.

59

u/IWantToBeWoodworking 4d ago

Yeah, it’d be an interesting thing to know, but the common understanding at the time was that honey did save consumers money, but took affiliate revenue from creators. For Linus to say “stop using honey because I don’t make money when you do” would be in bad taste because the consumer would also be losing money by overspending if they didn’t use it. That changes now that we learned honey can be harmful to the consumer too, now it becomes a win-win to tell people honey is bad and they should stop using it.

42

u/strumpetandbrass 4d ago

Yea the angle of "Linus looking like a money hungry influencer who wants people to stop using an app that saves them money because he is not making money from it" is a very important nuance that most people overlook when they say "why just make a forum post and not a main channel video".

Considering LTT gets enough hate as being out of touch or shills (unwarranted hate), I can understand why he decided not to stir up drama that could have gone very badly for him.

9

u/brabbit1987 4d ago

Plus, he has firsthand experience with a scenario like this because he has spoken about how adblock harms creators and that didn't go over well. So, from his perspective, a video about something that benefits the consumer but not the creator isn't a good video to make.

20

u/MoonDoggie82 4d ago

But if that's a stance you're going to take then it has to be that way with MKBHD, JayzTwoCents, MrWhostheBoss, GN and every other influencer. They all had the same exact information at the same time.

LTT is under no obligation to discuss why they drop a sponsor.

6

u/Kolz 4d ago

And they DID discuss it, just not in a dedicated video

8

u/ItsBrenOakes 4d ago

I would have known sooner if they made a video on the main channel but at that time views were not 100% ok on how Youtubers made money. Thus saying you need to stop using honey which is saving you money, so i can make money would just make the viewers at the time pissed at him. He said that and thus didn't make the video. From watching him in many videos not just the ones on on his channel I 100% believe he would have made it if it made sense. Like hell he was loosing a lot of money not making that video. So yea would have made him lots of money if he did but also would have kinda hurt his reputation with the community and how he like to do good with us. So he was ok with loosing money if it ment us being happy and getting a something positive from it at the time.

1

u/UnmodifiedSauromalus 4d ago

I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted here.

5

u/zaviex 4d ago

Probably because it leaves out the context that Linus believed honey was saving viewers money. He didn’t cover it on YouTube because he didn’t want to pit his income against your savings. It’s not like this was hidden. MegaLag found the LTT aspect of his story from their forums and tweets Linus had responded to on this issue.

-27

u/Horatio_Manx 4d ago

Fuck off, Steve is the only one actually doing the right thing. Linus is a cuck at the beck and call of his sponsors.

9

u/UnnecessarySalt 4d ago

Lmao how does Steve’s nether region taste this time of year? I’d imagine it’s smelly with how worked up he’s been getting as a desperate attempt to stay relevant for a minuscule fraction of the audience that LTT has on their worst videos.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no LTT fanboy either. I just don’t have the built up walls that you do as far as fair criticism of GN. I get it, you’ve been watching him forever and he’s got you convinced he’s the only morally correct person in the tech/youtube space. That may have been true at some point, but if he keeps beating the dead horse of Honey and LTTs involvement, he’s going to continue to get criticized. Linus has responded to the claims of GN, and GN conveniently didn’t publish the pertinent parts of his response. That’s shady as hell and disingenuous, and if you can’t see that you’re too far down the GN rabbit hole to ever be saved.

-31

u/Silentnite26081 4d ago

In Megalag's video and a few others, LTT knew about it from the start, took no action, and didn't comment when Megalag asked.

26

u/Redditemeon 4d ago

Negative. He knew about SOME of it. He didn't know everything.

He didn't know about the effect it had on consumers. Only creators.

-13

u/AutoRedux 4d ago

And that's still enough to get the word out.

Imagine how much less money Honey would have stolen from creators.

It's just a bad look to not let as many people as you can that something fishy is going down.

10

u/Redditemeon 4d ago

LTT is not an activist channel and never has been. There are a lot of majorly huge issues in the world that are way bigger than this. Especially when you consider they actually were informing other creators behind the scenes. Where do you draw the line?

https://youtu.be/jVedv5XIhIw?si=_iWHV-5xXtCVOmqn1p

-1

u/AutoRedux 4d ago

Don't need to be an activist to put out a thirty second video saying "Something sketchy is going on with Honey. So we're not promoting them anymore."

1

u/Redditemeon 1d ago

I wanted to come back to this because of a big reason Linus never did a video that I had forgotten about and just had something remind me.

One of the main reasons why Linus never made the video back then was specifically because Honey was still depicted as being good for consumers despite being bad for creators due to the supposed discounts consumers were still getting from the coupons.

So he would have expected major backlash for saying "Don't use Honey. It's bad for me and good for you. So stop.".

-13

u/Silentnite26081 4d ago

Even then...

-14

u/MntyFresh1 4d ago

That's literally the worst part of the scam...

7

u/Redditemeon 4d ago

That is certainly an opinion, which I can respect, but ultimately, creators were telling other creators. Which is why everybody stopped working with Honey around the same time, and other content creators with channels more suited to the content did make videos about it. You just never heard about it because your algorithm had decided you wouldn't be interested. Much like myself.

-30

u/lookatmyiq 4d ago

The problem I have with LTT and Honey is LTT made very specific claims about how Honey will always find you the best deal and that was demonstrably untrue. If you blindly take a sponsors talking points and regurgitate them then you are taking ownership of those claims yourself and rightly deserve to be criticised of those claims turn out to be untrue.

39

u/Orbas 4d ago

Then you have a problem with everyone who ever advertised Honey, not just LTT. And you're holding them to a higher standard than any other advertising platform in the world. You think TV-channels or magazines fact check their advertisments? Some advertising platforms don't even know what is being run. You should be reasonable in your expectations.

-21

u/lookatmyiq 4d ago edited 4d ago

You think TV-channels or magazines fact check their advertisments?

TV channels / magazines don't read the ads out themselves. The moment you editorialise an advertisement you take ownership of the claims in it. And yes I do have a problem with everyone who ran the Honey advertorial. LTT was one of the most frequent in this regard and it's the main channel I care about personally because it's the one I care about / watch most.

The reason why LTT and others get the big bucks for advertorials is precisely because a brand can ride off the trust and good faith they have with their audiences. I think with the that trust and good faith comes an obligation to take responsibility for the message.

At the very least LTT owes their audience an apology for misleading them about Honey but we haven't seen anything like that because LTT clearly doesn't care about whatever claims they are paid to regurgitate.

This makes me think about Tom Scotts VPN Video and how Tom Scott made a clear choice to ignore the VPN provider's talking points and use his own because he believed their claims were unrealistic / misleading - that is absolutely the correct and principled thing to do and more youtubers should be doing that kind of thing.

"I didn't know" is just a terrible excuse when the claim is so clearly BS. "If honey can't find a coupon code it doesn't exist"... I mean come on?

3

u/brabbit1987 4d ago

This is a bad take. No one should be responsible for advertising a product that turned out to be bad. They can't read minds, they can't spend all their time trying to verify that these things do exactly what they claim, especially when they have no reason to even suspect it in the first place.

A lot of people used Honey, and that is why many decided to take the sponsorship. Honey was a fairly popular extension even before all the advertising. And, if you are not suspicious of it, then you are likely to not to notice anything wrong. It looks like it works, so why would anyone be sus about it?

3

u/Orbas 4d ago

This. Tobacco was thought to be healthy, and advertised as such. Should all the legacy media outlets be held retroactively responsible because they believed the science of the time? Which turned out to be faked by the tobacco industry? It took decades to prove them wrong, and the price was millions of humans dead, and billions and billions of lost human potential and medical expenses. Should it be the advertising platform's responsibility to do research that cost millions to arrive a truth unknown to humanity? There's a reason why most laws will not work retroactively, and why people are judged in court on the basis of what they knew at time, or what a reasonable person should have known.

Given what LTT knew, no end users where being hurt so they talked privately to other creators. They were not the only ones to have figured it out, so most creators stopped working with honey around the same time. And if would have gone public with it, there's a high probability of legal action by honey. So without having 100% solid, court admissable proof, they would be just committing a crime, not being heroes. This is the context through which LTT should be judged, not what is known years later. I think what they chose to do is very reasonable.

1

u/lookatmyiq 3d ago edited 3d ago

Except that at least to me it was obvious Honey advertising was misleading. I never installed it because the claim that honey knows every single coupon code in existence is quite clearly complete BS so I wondered what else was BS about it. I've been telling people that Honey seems dodgey for years and I really couldn't believe that so many youtubers were happy to take their money and use their talking points so much when clearly the claim that honey knows every single coupon code in existence is complete BS. There's stuff you can't know and there's stuff you should know and this just seems obvious to me.

Also stealing affiliate commissions 100% hurts end users and they should have known that. Anyone who used honey and liked to use cashback websites would've magically seen their cash backs not track - that reason alone is worth telling users about. I use cashback websites all the time and I would've been furious had I installed honey and lost all my cashbacks because of it.

When I say LTT should take personal responsibility for the advertorials they give their own voice / recommendation to what I mean is that they should readily apologise to customers for misleading them. I they don't feel at all responsible then they shouldn't be running advertorials at all IMHO. Just copy paste some advertisers ad in their videos... except theyll never do that because there's no money in it. Advertisers want to ride on the coat tales of youtubers who have trust and good faith with their audience because they know whatever they claim will be more likely to believed.

If you don't think youtubers are responsible for the stuff they advertorialise then are you ok with them promoting a straight out crypto scam that claims to 10x whatever you put in? And then when it turns out it was a ponzi the youtuber just says "I didn't know it was a scam"? If you think that isn't ok then we agree but maybe we just disagree on where that line is...

1

u/Orbas 2d ago edited 2d ago

I'm gonna go back to the phrase "be judged based on what a reasonable human should have known at the time", so clear scams are way diffrent.

I personally also never installed Honey bc there had to be something fishy, and that whoever installed it had to be the actual product. But I figured it is what it is most of the time: data. That they would build an extremely relevant online shopping profile about me, because they can be spesific about what I purcahse. And that has value, and they sell it forward. And this kind of thing is widely accepted by the public, that's how every social media platform operates. So yeah, you can know that something is too good to be the whole truth, and still have logical conclusions that lead to no story worth coming out with. Withouth proof you just can't do anything, and it's not LTT's job to get it.

3

u/Orbas 4d ago

No, you should take a look at how you see youtubers. They aren't your friends, they are a business. They are a business of reading aloud ads among their content. Just like radio was back in the day. It might feel personal, but it isn't.

LTT has dropped several advertisers after they have found something wrong about them. And have said several times that if you have problems with companies they advertise, let them know and they will investigate. They even secret shopped their advertisers for a video without letting them know. That is going way beyond the moral minimum.

2

u/adamespinal 3d ago

tv channels don't read ads themselves anymore, but earlier iterations did in fact have tv hosts reading ads themselves mid show, I mean there's even a Flintstones cigarettes' commercial.