"Very dramatic shift" - Linus Tech Tips opens up about the channel's declining viewership

DarkviperAU also mentioned it.

I'll echo that I have felt an algorithm change. I watch a lot of leather crafting videos and a lot of Adam Savage videos. In the past week I've been getting Adam Savage working on leather videos and I've been thrilled to discover these. As someone who's been watching both Adam Savage and leather crafting videos for months or maybe years, I should have already seen these, but somehow missed these until this past week. Now YouTube shows me video after video of Adam Savage working on leather, which I love.

Honestly, YouTube is the “least bad” of most commercial social media.

If people go to Twitter or Discord or whatever instead, that would be awful.

That would be the dream! Not sure about actual data but yeah. I want it to be true lol.

Been paying for Nebula for years, but their app has a long way to go.

youtube is already replacing it with AI slop, and propaganda. they increased it. thats where the money is, other than getting it from the major television networks.

i think history buff channels were calling out there were clones of his channel in AI form.

If anyone wants to be part of the solution: !peertube@lemmy.world

My heavily biased take is I like peertube. And like the creators on it.

Could back up that theory that it's autoplay views being reduced and they are not worth much anyway

He will look for answers literally anywhere, except for within.

The tech scene is just not as interesting anymore

He has literally publicly talked about this many times, he is very much aware of this fact and has stated that he's always looking for things that he can try and make interesting.

and the stuff he specifically covers is even less interesting. But the bigger issue is that everything LMG do is just corporate jank. It was fun when it was home garage jank, with 2 employees, but now it's just miserable and frustrating

On this part, I honestly don't quite get it. It's definitely a bit more corporate now, they are a 100 person company, but when it comes to the videos, I don't really see what else you'd want them to do? Sure they have some sponsored videos every now and then that are just showcases of a specific product, but even then I typically find them relatively interesting. And they still have a lot of videos where they're trying to build novel stuff and thinkering. Yeah, sure, it's typically on a higher level than what the average Joe would be capable of doing in their backyard, but I still feel like there's a place for it. Take one of the more recent videos, the one with the double-decker table. It's extremely cool to me, they took a regular table and a sit-to-stand desk, put one on top of the other, and made effectively two desks in one, one for gaming and one for a hobby. It's not something I'd build for myself, but it's a really fun concept.

Yep agreed.
It's downright disgusting to browse youtube without premium or an adblocker.

Sadly I need premium simply because I am watching on an Android TV and I am not trusting third party clients with my google account.
Too much stuff is associated with it (monetary)

And then there is the occasional 30 minute to an hour infomercial that comes on obvious stuff people watch to go to sleep! I wanted someone softly talking about outer spacey things, not you're shitty product I give so much little of a fuck about that I didn't even look at what was being advertised. I hate you so much I will not even remember your name to give you free advertising by birding about you online!

I only pay them because I watch a stupid amount of YouTube. Hours a day, many more hours when not working.

If those ads come back while I'm paying though, the flag flies.

I have premium through a page that makes family groups and you pay a lot less. From time to time there is an issue with the group and you spend like two days without premium until it is fixed.

During those periods YT is unwatchable and I skip using it until the issue is fixed

On broadcast TV, a 30 minute timeslot had only 23 minutes of actual content and 7 minutes of ads.

That's what we're heading back to. 20% of the watch time is ads.

Ya, I can't believe how negative people are towards LTT. That channel is the reason I de-googled when I did, dove into home assistant, even checked out Linux (and now use arch full time by the way). I'm not super interested in defending a company let alone a YouTube personality, but like Jesus Christ some most of the people commenting negatively about LTT need to chill the fuck out. They're not that bad, they clearly pay people well, they're open and honest about most shit. If your bullshit detector is going off with LTT I think it needs tuning because you're probably hitting a lot of false negatives IMHO.

I have no doubt being as wealthy as Linus is is changing him, I have no doubt that's effecting the company, but there's nothing I'm seeing as a regular watcher that is glaringly bad or evil and I recognize in myself I'm actively starting to default to "fuck off" for millionaires so like ┐⁠(⁠￣⁠ヘ⁠￣⁠)⁠┌. I don't think the channel is getting grandfathered in on that clause either, they just seem to like people doing their best.

I don't like Linus's time-theft stance as of late, the most recent multi monitors vid had a comedic discussion between him and an employee and I recognize his job in that role is to be the straight man and say time charging fraud is theft or whatever but it feels out of touch. That's a negative thing I can point to I guess. Am I gonna consider Linus or LTTY evil or shit because he's vocal about theft being theft even though I think corpos can fuck off because they're getting more productivity then we're getting paid - no, no I'm not.

Yahtzee is complaining about the same issue: https://youtu.be/cpVnx4_yqTo

Something has changed in the last few months

The clickbait titles and thumbnails destroyed most of the interest I had in their videos but at that time, it was clear that they were pivoting to a more typical less enthusiast-level audience. I still found some of their occasional videos somewhat interesting but the increasing hypocrisy and shit they've pulled made me stop watching all together.

Then why is Yahtzee complaining about the same issue? He does games, not tech: https://youtu.be/cpVnx4_yqTo

Has the Second Wind channels quality gone down too, AT THE EXACT SAME TIME as LTT?

Oh Linus is a giant child.

He once got pissed off, because they got called out by an actual scientist. They were creating videos promoting fake products. Then they played victim and pushed it instead of, ya know, taking the high road.

Hes an emotionally stunted 13 year old, that thinks its funny to keep dropping/breaking things that most normal people could never afford to even touch, who is quick to criticize the wrongs of everyone else, but acts like a goddamn martyr as soon as you criticize him and his behavior.

his response to GamersNexus "being mean" by reporting facts backed up by receipts and evidence is only the tip of the iceberg.

he rubbed me the wrong way when he created drama with employees like last year. fans/people were being sexist towards a female employee how she wasnt in tech, and she should do anything on the "show.

its that Nasal voice right? like lois from family guy

I never watched that channel very much, but in the several videos I’ve seen (maybe 10-12 total?), he seemed to know exactly what he was talking about.

I’d be interested in hearing what specific complaints technical experts have with the channel.

I have definitely unsubscribed from some big channels that I used to watch routinely, and simply often don't click on videos from channels I haven't yet unsubscribed from. It's just not interesting stuff. It's filler crap. thankfully it seems like there are enough smaller channels to fill that space, including some of the people originally from those other ones (like speed and donut)

Ugh yeah and they had to interview the owner of Noah’s Arcade and he did an awful rap

i wonder whats his problem

YouTube should have a way to filter out certain content.

Like sub 1000 subscriber Chanel's, 1000-10,000 channels, >10,000 etc

Sometimes you just don't want to watch the big time YouTubers.

Unfortunately, most of those so called "small channels" are actually bots using AI content farm.

I only get these types of videos in shorts. In all the other stuff is like "we see you watched one video on this topic so here is 400 more"

Or google just twiddle our knobs and youtube is not a meritocracy ?
I mean, we don't need to post hoc ergo propter hoc on occam's razor here, we know google, we have their game plan.

This is a powerplay, youtube reigning in the talent and intervening in the algorithm, its "meritocratic puppetry".
NO DOUBT, they are NOT shutting them down, but they have REMOVED a previously existing "unfair boost".

It's not just ltt. Pretty much everyone I watch that talks about their metrics is complaining about the drop in views. Some also a loss in income.

a bunch of ppl with STIs

Hey man, don't bash the WRX! It's a cool car 😉

But yeah, blocking ads is the only way to watch YT. I swore off twitch once uBO stopped working there.

the amount of ads yt pushes, if your not using adblockers people are just toturing themselves. Also i dont login so no subscription for them, because alot of the content creators eventually turn shitheel down the line anyways, or give(non-malicious)misinformation in thier industry.