The Problem with Linus Tech Tips: Accuracy, Ethics, & Responsibility

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Is watching this video considered piracy if there are no ads to skip over?
- This comment is where LTT started going down for me.
  
  I listened to an episode of the wan show once and I was out. He showed such disdain for his own audience.
  Someone gave like $100 or something insane for a super chat question and he was rude to them.
  
  Someone gave like $100 or something insane for a super chat question and he was rude to them.
  Should've bought a backpack instead. /s
- Bro, the simple fact that Linus failed to recognize that ads are most of the time forced on you, with no paid opt-out alternative, had me cursing at him.
  It's not piracy if I can't pay to get the product unaltered. PERIOD.
  
  YouTube premium is exactly that though, isn't it? Not that I agree with either side, just trying to comprehend
  
  You still get their obnoxious "screwdriver, lttstore, waterbottle" reminders in every single video. Their 10sec in-video ads aren't that bad, but other channels have 2min ads within 8min videos. Which mean's paying users still get more ads than someone with browser extensions/modified apps.
  The whole thing is a race to the bottom. People use adblock because there are just too many Youtube ads. Creators get less money from Youtube, so they resort to more and more in-video ads, and eventually SponsorBlock gets more appealing.
  
  Yeah, I've generally liked LTT's approach to ads since it means I can hit the right arrow key twice to skip the ad entirely but I hear you for sure.
  
  there's midroll ads baked into every video
  
  I'm ok with the little "buy our merch" bits, but yeah the sponsor spots have always rubbed me the wrong way, especially as a YouTube premium subscriber
  
  YouTube premium is supposed to be this, but it is apparently glitching enough that you get plenty of results for "YouTube premium still showing ads" web searches, and it does nothing against sponsor spots.
  I would shut up if Google implemented a sponsor block feature for premium users, and fixed their ads showing to (too many) premium subscribers. Buy they don't. As it stands, paying for premium to opt-out from ads is as efficient as using DoNotTrack (which is effectively just added data for fingerprinting) to opt-out from tracking. It makes you part of the problem when you clearly intend to be part of the solution. 🤷‍♂️
  
  You can make a Google search and find almost anything, just because a handful of people claim to have an issue doesn't mean that there really is one. You can find issues with any service. This point is incredibly overblown. Also if you sign up for premium and it's still showing you ads you can contact support or cancel it. That said, I've had premium for a couple years now and have never seen an ad. I mostly use it because we watch a lot of YouTube on our Roku and there is no way around ads on that without premium.
  
  expired
  
  Huh. I've had Premium for years and never once had it show me ads anyway. Crazy that other people have.
  
  expired
  
  It's also that so many ads are malicious and present in incredibly bad faith. Maybe that ad from Welches is fine, even if I had to watch it 3 times back to back, but that mobile game ad that hits my block list for malware isn't. Treating them the same is what the website does, even though some are malicious, so I treat them the same and block them all.
- Evergreen joke lol. Always use adblock and sponsor block folks. Always.
- Remember when they used an unlicenced version of OCCT commercially?
  https://linustechtips.com/topic/1411603-ltt-is-stealing-software-from-occt-and-ignoring-his-emails/
  
  And linus' response to it is the same smug doublespeak as he's using now. God I hate this dude.

299 comments