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this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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So I'll try to break it down best I can as it seems more like you understand the time line but not the reasons people are upset. I hope you don't take offense to this but are you on the spectrum? Asking as I have a friend who's sister is and usually have to break down explinations like this for her (though that's much eadier in person rather than online where it won't translate as well), and they way you talk reminds me a lot of how her perspective works.
So to start, could you give me your reasoning as to why you don't think this is a review, like more pointed reasoning besides being informal, as formality is not a maker or breaker of what makes a review now a days. Many definitions of what constitutes a review have excluded the formal aspect in the definition due to our changing world.
To most people a review is generally made up of the following points by doesn't necessarily need all of them to qualify:
I cannot tell you if Linus set out to make a review video or not, but Billet labs did send them the prototype with the intent to either show off their concept design or review the product and garner some publicly to a market audience they are targeting.
However what I can say is that Linus has not if it was a reviewer or not, and from what we can gather has no disclaimer saying it is not a review, and it's final presentation results in providing and setting up the audience to experience what they think will be a review. It does not help that Linus also does do reviews on the channel in the same format of this video.
This primes the audience into believing this is a review. If it was not a review it should had been explicitly stated to avoid confusion. As of now though, the video meets the expectations of the audience both from past experience and the general idea of what a review is in the public consciousness.
As to the value of the product itself, while I can tell that you do not think it is good value for the price (I agree). Their are many enthusiast in the PC modding scene that out of pleasure for the hobby will drop 1k+ on components that do less than this water block purely because they like it it's look.
This water block is not really meant for the average consumer, it is meant for the enthusiast, that will drop lots of money for a custom water cooling system where they invest absurd amounts of money for a cool looking cooling system. And when compared in that lense to other enthusiast and custom water blocks and cooling systems on the market it is actually reasonably priced as some can go for upwards of 1k to 2k with lower end water blocks being ~600 ish, and many in the enthusiast community find that a good value because that's what is expected in that niche. That niche enthusiast consumer is the target market audience for this product, not us regular consumers.
I think the super car analogy is quite fair as, for a daily driver, a super car is not something a normal person would want or need for that price for daily communiting... But for someone who has a hobby of either collecting or working on cars. A super car for them would be a good investment.
For the auctioning thing I'll try to keep it brief. Whilst it was a mistake, likely due to mismanagment or overworked individuals. That is not a good excuse that only raises further concerns, questions, and outrage.
As someone myself who works in a similar vein of IT where components get sent to and fro to various individuals. Not being able to keep track of a prototype collaboration piece and the associated GPU that was sent with it for specific testing purposes is a level of mismanagement that I have yet to see.
At some point they honestly would have either had to go out of their way to let this happen, or their internal systems are so terribly setup and mismanaged that it slipped through. For a claimed professional business, I honestly can't tell you which looks worse to the public in a PR sense as both are egregiously bad options. And even in isolation they alone would indeed caused massive backlash, what they did is near completely unheard of except in some of the worst businessing blunders cases told as horror stories in businesses classes as what not to do.
To give context, if Billet labs was not just two guys doing a start up. Or if this had happened to say AMD or Nvidia who can afford lawyers, this would have been a massive lawsuit that could have bankrupted LMG.
It's a violation of so many industry practices and professionalism standards and frankily even a breach of some laws given the right arguments. It is really hard to overstate just how bad this was given how laid back everyone has been about it. LMG got very lucky, that Billet labs does not have the resources to bring LMG to court for a protracted period of time.
Finally just wanted to say, whether Billet Labs gains from this incident is not really relevant. Billet Labs while being compensated now, is still tangibly set back in their RnD time and would have most likely preferably not been involved in any drama at all. As most companies would prefer.
I hope this helps even somewhat as I tried to be as detailed and thorough as possible in my explinations. But I am on mobile doing this through the day and conveying ideas through text is more difficult for me than in person. So there might be errors and other such stuff. If it still is not helpful, then I'm sorry I couldn't have been of better assistance
No offense taken, I am indeed.
I can actually see what you mean about the review now that you put it that way. I have watched LTT for years (over a decade even) so I know their for-fun format vs. their review format but I can see how someone without that kind of familiarity wouldn't. I do think there should be better distinction between them so cases like this don't happen.
Since you asked the most obvious signs it's not a review are the lack of any kind of conclusion, there's no comparisons, no graphs/charts-- nothing that actually tests the product which you would see in their reviews. If you look at the last video they posted which is about the Fifine A6T microphone. You don't even have to watch it, just look at the sections which are things like "Microphone Tests," "Measurements," and "Pickup Pattern." The water block video sections are all things to do with building. Nothing related to testing.
As for the super car analogy, I have a 7950X. It is literally the most powerful consumer-grade CPU you can buy right now. I encode video so all 32 threads are running 100% for hours at a time. And I cool it with a Noctua NH-D15, an air cooler that cost me $90. It runs perfectly. Even if you have infinite money to throw around I just can't see a reason to use an $800 water block when the best CPU you can get is fine with air cooling. At least with a super car it actually goes much faster than a normal car but spending 8x more on cooling is going to get you at most like a few percent more performance. I looked up some numbers and it's even less than that. You lose 0.5% performance running a NH-U14S at 40% fan speed compared to an AIO, and that isn't even as strong as the NH-D15 is. I couldn't easily find any comparisons for a custom loop but I can't imagine the difference is more than 2-3%. Which means its main purpose is to look cool I guess? But I'm sorry that still makes it a dumb product IMO even if there is a small market for it. I think I'd go as far as to say the market itself shouldn't exist.
As for the auction, your explanation has helped me figure out why I didn't feel as strongly about it. "For a claimed professional business" it is really bad but I wasn't truly looking at LTT as a business. I know objectively it is one, but from an emotional standpoint it doesn't really feel like one. Like I said before I've been watching them for over a decade, back when it was still NCIX Tech Tips. So in my head I am still imagining a guy and his friends messing around with tech and a camera. But it is hitting me now that they really have grown well beyond that. Linus has always done janky things. He's even known as the guy who drops things. It's also well known that people take things from the office all the time so items are constantly going missing. To me there is zero surprise that they would misplace something but as you said if they want to be a professional business then that is unacceptable. Maybe with the new CEO there will be more professionalism but honestly I'm not even sure I want that. Personally I love the jank. I enjoy Linus doing dumb things. I would hate to see it become a soulless corporation but I suppose that is what it is supposed to be.
But anyways, I have rambled on long enough. What you said was genuinely helpful. I really appreciate it and thank you for taking the time to make your response. Your friend's sister is lucky to have you, not many people are willing things like this. Honestly you might even be the only one I've met. I feel like I can't even remember a time where someone has done this for me. Usually people think I am "trolling" and someone in this thread even called me a sociopath, which I'm not going to lie was really disheartening but it's not the first time. Thank you for treating me like a person.
It's all good man. Mean people always like to pile on when someone is getting heavily downvoted and they keep responding. Mob mentality.
I think you are slightly biased towards Linus, but I also think you made some valid points that contributed much more to the discussion than people regurgitating some variation of "Linus sucks". I enjoyed reading your perspective 😊