Linus Gabriel Sebastian & Linus Media Group / Linus Tech Tips - Narcissistic corporate shill YouTuber driving his media empire into the ground. KILL COUNT: 2

[mandatorylurk]

From last week's WAN Show, they mentioned in an earlier episode they had an actual coal miner use their backpack for a year, and they wanted to look at it to see where the success/failure points were. Well, at 49:00 Linus cuts the bottom of the backpack, then realizes the bottom is not double thick like it was designed to be.

Which leads to this week's WAN show at 26:28, where he says the supplier did not double up the backpack bottom because they thought it was a misprint in the design, so just didn't include the extra layer, and no one from LTT caught it. This makes Linus do another Trust Me Bro guarantee that they can return the backpack if they want, there's an extra warranty on the backpack if you want to keep it and even giving a $25 LTT store credit to all backpack purchasers from initial launch to 12/9/23.

 

[Kuritan Deplorable]

Which leads to this week's WAN show at 26:28, where he says the supplier did not double up the backpack bottom because they thought it was a misprint in the design, so just didn't include the extra layer, and no one from LTT caught it.

I guarantee you that they billed for double walling as specified on the design though. And I'd bet every store credit they're about to give away that they didn't destructively disassemble the samples to verify the internal construction because some soy faced slob in the merch department absolutely had to have the new backpack first and if he tore this one up, he couldn't take it home. So he took a surface look, said "good enough" and that was that.

Seriously, with any business partner, trust but verify. Anyone who takes offense to you double checking that you're getting what you pay for is not worth trying to appease anyway.

 

[Spiral Architect]

Is it just me or does he sound really condescending when he talks about the refund option? He's not exactly subtle implying that you're a frustrated baby if you want a refund instead of his store credit and extended warranty.
I also find it quite amusing he's trying to be badass about this whole situation and boast they don't fuck around. It's not like he has a choice, i'm pretty sure even a shithole like canada has decent consumer laws which will tear you a new one over a false advertising, which this clearly is. And besides, it would be a complete social suicide.

 

[Kuritan Deplorable]

i'm pretty sure even a shithole like canada has decent consumer laws which will tear you a new one over a false advertising, which this clearly is

They're actually super aggressive about it, even just being "recklessly misleading", IE "I assumed the manufacturer just did it right and didn't do my due diligence to check the product I received" would put it into the criminal section of our false or misleading representation laws.

Also, fun extract from farther down that same page -

Don't remember if this was brought up the first time round but can't hurt to bring it up again since we're here, the "Trust Us Bro" brand of warranty is actually just illegal here in Canada. Also worth noting that he could still be held liable for this if someone cared to chase it down, this commission is an incredibly "please just give me a reason to start a fight" leaning group.


Nothing will come of it unless there's some actual groundswell customer frustration, and even then it'd just be a fine.

 

[Susanna]

I guarantee you that they billed for double walling as specified on the design though. And I'd bet every store credit they're about to give away that they didn't destructively disassemble the samples to verify the internal construction because some soy faced slob in the merch department absolutely had to have the new backpack first and if he tore this one up, he couldn't take it home. So he took a surface look, said "good enough" and that was that.

Would you need to tear it apart to verify? I can tell my bag has double walls, because if I pinch the inside and the outside, they will move separately.

 

[Kuritan Deplorable]

Would you need to tear it apart to verify? I can tell my bag has double walls, because if I pinch the inside and the outside, they will move separately.

For that detail probably not, but if your trying to be thorough, opening areas and checking for signs of defects, bad assembly, poor materials etc in the parts that get hidden away is probably a good idea.

 

[AnOminous]

Also worth noting that he could still be held liable for this if someone cared to chase it down, this commission is an incredibly "please just give me a reason to start a fight" leaning group.

America has a few commissions/agencies like this and anti-consumer fraud laws, mostly in fairly liberal states like California and New Jersey. For instance, New Jersey law allows collecting triple damages both individually and in class actions, and you don't even to prove actual intent to defraud, just that materially misleading statements were made.

Weak anti-fraud laws are a bad idea because nobody gives a shit about defrauding consumers when, even if they get caught, they just have to pay a small fine less than the money they managed to steal. If they're looking at a giant bite being taken out of their ass they're a little more careful.

 

[Kuritan Deplorable]

America has a few commissions/agencies like this and anti-consumer fraud laws, mostly in fairly liberal states like California and New Jersey. For instance, New Jersey law allows collecting triple damages both individually and in class actions, and you don't even to prove actual intent to defraud, just that materially misleading statements were made.

Weak anti-fraud laws are a bad idea because nobody gives a shit about defrauding consumers when, even if they get caught, they just have to pay a small fine less than the money they managed to steal. If they're looking at a giant bite being taken out of their ass they're a little more careful.

Personally, I'm just in favor of a three strikes and your out style deal. Escalating fines, with fine three also coming with an 5 years long revocation of your advertising license. I'd prefer "blanket for the whole company" but I'd also accept a compromise for "affected product category". If you are unable to describe your product without lying to people about it, its in the consumers best interest that we forbid you from being allowed to actively promote these lies while you take some time to figure out what's going wrong.

I guarantee you, by fine two companies will have lawyers reviewing every frame of the new iphone ad and asking "But is it really 1,000 megapixels if its just digital post processing on the new camera?"

 

[CYKA RUSH B]

Why is his faggy son wearing a mask?
View attachment 5553307

the answer is already stated in the question

 

[Homoshrexual2]

But why though? The LAN party in your house.

Because he wants to host a LAN and the office isn't big enough. Also an excuse to get free stuff for his home network. This YouTube comment explains it succinctly.

And I'd bet every store credit they're about to give away that they didn't destructively disassemble the samples to verify the internal construction because some soy faced slob in the merch department absolutely had to have the new backpack first and if he tore this one up, he couldn't take it home.

That soy faced slob is Linus, he says it in the WAN show.

 

[TheRaptorJesus]

Because he wants to host a LAN and the office isn't big enough.

He has warehouses bro, he has plenty of unused area over at ltt labs. There was zero reason for him to do this at his home.

As for the comment, he could still just take all the shitbiquiti gear home after they filmed. Like he does with everything else he fills his home with. I love shitibquti sponsoring people when their store is out of stock 99% of the time. They also think 2.5 GBE is enterprise level. I regret going with UBI AP and switches, thankfully I run the controller locally and never bought a gateway and use opnsense instead.

 

[Homoshrexual2]

He has warehouses bro, he has plenty of unused area over at ltt labs. There was zero reason for him to do this at his home.

LTT Labs is full of lab equipment, the warehouse is full of products and desks. There are plenty of reasons to do it at his house, one of them being free stuff from Ubiquiti, another being that houses are more comfortable than warehouses. His house is already has ethernet everywhere, it was probably easier to do it in an already networked house than an empty building.

 

[Kuritan Deplorable]

His house is already has ethernet everywhere, it was probably easier to do it in an already networked house than an empty building.

Not really, actually. If anything, I'd be cursing my boss for telling me to repurpose some consumer home grade network for a full scale LAN event in a fucking basement. Meanwhile if I was being thrown into a completely empty warehouse then at least I can start from scratch with a buildout more suited to the problem. Any potential losses made in having to configure a few extra pieces of hardware would be more than made up for with not having to worry about fucking up the bosses home network configurations, not fighting weird rules and policies he may have in place to prevent his kids binging any more videos of animal abuse, etc.

another being that houses are more comfortable than warehouses.

I understand the general sentiment, but I don't think anyone from LTT should feel more comfortable when asked to film at Linus's mcmansion, because you know you're going to the dicks out daycare to do free labor for the boss.

 

[TheRaptorJesus]

TT Labs is full of lab equipment, the warehouse is full of products and desks.

Bullshit, we saw labs, its huge with unused space, much more than his home. Labs is a failed venture and has nothing but an un-assembled sound chamber and a PSU tester. Labs does nothing, has zero equipment.

You're telling me they have all this space used and have nothing to show for it? Maybe its full of LTT merch.

 

[The Ugly One]

They're actually super aggressive about it, even just being "recklessly misleading", IE "I assumed the manufacturer just did it right and didn't do my due diligence to check the product I received" would put it into the criminal section of our false or misleading representation laws.

Also, fun extract from farther down that same page -
View attachment 5553966
Don't remember if this was brought up the first time round but can't hurt to bring it up again since we're here, the "Trust Us Bro" brand of warranty is actually just illegal here in Canada. Also worth noting that he could still be held liable for this if someone cared to chase it down, this commission is an incredibly "please just give me a reason to start a fight" leaning group.
View attachment 5553969

Nothing will come of it unless there's some actual groundswell customer frustration, and even then it'd just be a fine.

IANAL, but typically if a supplier defrauds an OEM, and the OEM doesn't catch the fraud, if there's any criminal liability, it's on the supplier, not the OEM. Unless Linus is lying about getting defrauded, which he could be.

 

[p1138]

Bullshit, we saw labs, its huge with unused space, much more than his home. Labs is a failed venture and has nothing but an un-assembled sound chamber and a PSU tester. Labs does nothing, has zero equipment.

You're telling me they have all this space used and have nothing to show for it? Maybe its full of LTT merch.

They have an RF chamber as of a few months ago

But you can still see the place is mostly wasted space and full of garbage with what's likely some merch sitting on racks in the back. Have they actually done anything with the RF chamber since? Doesn't seem like it. There's no cellphone or wifi test videos or anything on his channel, so yeah that's just more money flushed down the toilet to accomplish nothing with. Instead he's back to fucking around in his house when he could have just done the lan party thing at the warehouse and actually gotten some use out of the space.

 

[TheRaptorJesus]

They've done nothing with LTT labs and there is still more than enough room there to have held him lan party. With much less work than he needed to do at his home.

 

[Susanna]

Even if there had been less room in Labs than the McMansion, he should have held the event there. You don’t make employees come to your home for work! You just don’t! (Unless they’re actually house staff of course, but he never lets them be in the videos anyway)
It’s such a new money attitude. He’s clearly just trying to show off his eyesore of a home to the employees and viewers. Jokes on him, the house is laughable. The front has no architectural value and the garden was utterly tiny even before he stuck a pool in it like some middle class idea of what a nice home needs. The back is basically just a fucking garage.

 

[Kuritan Deplorable]

IANAL, but typically if a supplier defrauds an OEM, and the OEM doesn't catch the fraud, if there's any criminal liability, it's on the supplier, not the OEM. Unless Linus is lying about getting defrauded, which he could be.

Depends heavily on whether the OEM has reasonable means by which to catch the fraud - If Linus found out that they used a cheaper chemical for the waterproofing purposes and it failed under sunlight after a year or so, you'd be right and the supplier would probably be liable regardless. You see this a lot with issues related to metal quality from chinesium foundries - Its easy for anyone to check if this stainless steel is actually carbon steel, but its exceedingly difficult for the vast majority of manufacturers to check if the exact amount of vanadium and shit is present as required.

But for something as simple as "Physically verifying a backpack has been assembled as advertised" its gonna fall onto LTT as a monkey with two hands could spot check every delivery in a couple minutes. You'd be hard pressed to find a judge in this space who'd consider doing the pinch test and cutting it open if you can't find evidence of double walling to be an unrealistic ask or test for a bag seller. The fact they consider it an expensive premium bag would likely increase the expected standard of quality control a customer would have, as opposed to being an argument for "we can't destroy $XXX in product for testing purposes".

But you can still see the place is mostly wasted space and full of garbage with what's likely some merch sitting on racks in the back. Have they actually done anything with the RF chamber since? Doesn't seem like it. There's no cellphone or wifi test videos or anything on his channel, so yeah that's just more money flushed down the toilet to accomplish nothing with. Instead he's back to fucking around in his house when he could have just done the lan party thing at the warehouse and actually gotten some use out of the space.

The labs seems to have fallen prey to being incompatible with the LTT content cycle, where a project doesn't get dedicated resources to see it to completion, and only gets partial resources for 3-5 days. They also seem to be primarily lead by writers, IE the Writer comes up with an episode idea, pitches, gets capacity and a timeline so they have someone assigned to film it, a face like Linus if needed, and editor time to polish it up and make it publishing ready. Prep the script as much as you can before your film slot comes up, provide edits and corrections you discover post filming to the editor and ask them pretty please add a disclaimer, and then its off into the limelight, ready or not.

This is all basically Anathema to the proper use of lab test equipment, which starts with "I need to acquire $100k in stock fans from the last decade", timelines with "Well, with all the fans, turnover time, and time spent working on the data and presentation, I'll need a couple months to get them done", and finishes with "No I have no episode idea this is just baseline data we should be gathering". A talented technical writer can make a video about this process once just from a "How its made" style, but this isn't great media content. Unless your Gamers Nexus apparently, who appear to be looking to beat LTT to the punch on the labs data front by just doing it better, first. I'd embed the video called "Huge PC Part Comparison Charts", but the great Invidious migration seems to be eating a bit of shit right now.

 

[p1138]

The labs seems to have fallen prey to being incompatible with the LTT content cycle, where a project doesn't get dedicated resources to see it to completion, and only gets partial resources for 3-5 days. They also seem to be primarily lead by writers, IE the Writer comes up with an episode idea, pitches, gets capacity and a timeline so they have someone assigned to film it, a face like Linus if needed, and editor time to polish it up and make it publishing ready. Prep the script as much as you can before your film slot comes up, provide edits and corrections you discover post filming to the editor and ask them pretty please add a disclaimer, and then its off into the limelight, ready or not.

This is all basically Anathema to the proper use of lab test equipment, which starts with "I need to acquire $100k in stock fans from the last decade", timelines with "Well, with all the fans, turnover time, and time spent working on the data and presentation, I'll need a couple months to get them done", and finishes with "No I have no episode idea this is just baseline data we should be gathering". A talented technical writer can make a video about this process once just from a "How its made" style, but this isn't great media content. Unless your Gamers Nexus apparently, who appear to be looking to beat LTT to the punch on the labs data front by just doing it better, first. I'd embed the video called "Huge PC Part Comparison Charts", but the great Invidious migration seems to be eating a bit of shit right now.

Yeah, I've seen the GN video with the mega charts or whatever they call it.

And yes, proper testing beyond some basic benchmarks is something that LTT cannot do, as it doesn't fit their production method of sharting videos out every 2-5 days. GN can produce a video every couple of days, but they have ongoing projects to go along with the new hardware benchmarks that need to be ready for when an NDA lifts. LTT on the other hand is still shitting out 12+ videos a week(seriously, 12 in the past 7 days across their channels) pretending to be the "smart" version of unbox therapy opening up sponsored products for revenue or fucking around with cheap junk, plus a clips channel, plus a podcast. Even after all the crap from a couple of months back... he's still just running a fucking bloated content mill.