Oof yeah was not aware of these at the time of my original comment.

LMG (Linus Media Group) was making careless mistakes and publishing a lot of inaccurate data, sometimes going as far to not recommend or label a product as “bad” after misusing it. This was likely due to an unnecessarily rushed pace of video releases that came from prioritizing sponsor revenue over accuracy, which many feel is a pretty massive ethics breach for a news outlet that is marketing itself as a home for highly objective, data driven content (LTT Labs).

Gamers Nexus called out this behavior in a 40 minute video which kicked off all the drama, and Linus posted a kneejerk response on the LTT forum where he largely defended his behavior and conclusions and badmouthed Gamers Nexus for going public with these criticisms instead of sharing them privately.

A few days later, LTT put out a video that was almost entirely LTT leaders other than Linus admitting how bad everything was, sharing some details on their processes, and committing to being more transparent & taking a week off uploading videos to rework things. But the video also included some tone deaf moments, like a plug for merch and Linus talking for a bit where he sort of apologized but didn’t really talk for long enough to acknowledge all of his fuck ups. He did say “I’m sorry” at one point which was pretty meme worthy.

The video was also monetized when it went up and the description had links to their merch store in it, which people called out as slimy and LTT subsequently removed.

Different people have different conclusions – some think it was a total non-apology, but I personally am satisfied. To me all their issues were the result of bad processes/automation run amok, so their commitment to reworking their processes and being more transparent about them with the community is exactly what I wanted to see.

But that’s just me – I think there are many valid conclusions that can be drawn from this.

Edit: There was also a reddit post on Reddit made by a former employee, Madison, that made allegations of sexual harassment. If true, these would be extremely damning, and to my knowledge LMG has not spoken on them yet. I also am just learning about this, so I don’t know whether these statements have been corroborated by anyone.

I get that this is just a meme, but comparing YouTube drama to the reckless behavior of a multi-billion dollar oil conglomerate causing incalculable amounts of ecological damage feels like a bit of an overreaction.

I really hope stepping down as CEO leads to Linus surrounding himself with people he trusts to call him out when he’s missing something.

He strikes me as the kind of person who is susceptible to a few certain mental traps you kinda don’t want to see in a leader of a large influential organization:

1. Taking an “ends justifies the means” mindset (e.g. stepping on the “growth” gas pedal and accepting sloppiness because it will get better later with Labs)
2. Letting “objective facts” justify big subjective decisions w/o much consideration (e.g. thinking the Billet Labs video didn’t need to be re-shot because the “objectively” product rec conclusion wouldn’t have been different)
3. Substituting actual solutions to problems w/ commitments to solving them (e.g. implementing “Accuracy KPIs” instead of slowing the pace of video releases)

None of these constitute outright malice, IMO, but boy can they lead to a problematic working environment.

I’m sure there will be quite the flame war as a result of this, which I think is a bummer. Linus strikes me as someone who’s acting in good faith, but has an unshakable habit of making rushed decisions without considering the full scope of their impact, and is (or has been) lacking the appropriate feedback structure to help him learn to either a) make more thoughtful decisions, or b) fully delegating those decisions to folks who are better equipped to make them.

Here’s hoping this leads to positive change.

This kind of gatekeeping and elitism is bad for Lemmy and for FOSS.

It makes this community a less welcoming place and leaves new folks with a bad first impression. Much better to be welcoming and let people learn/see the benefits of FOSS at their own pace.

Most of the comments here are talking about the x% of time Linux gets messed up it can be really intimidating for new users and getting the right help can be a challenge, or simply more time than it’s worth.

I think this is true, but I think there’s another thing that irks people:

Software Compatibility

The general public primarily interacts with their computers through established applications that commonly aren’t available on Linux w/o intimidating work around (if at all).

A noob who switches to Linux isn’t going to know the limitations up front, and the second they decide they want to learn Adobe Premier for work, they’re kinda fucked. They’ll either spend hours/days of online research trying to figure out if it’s even possible, or they’ll ask for help only to have someone tell them they’re wrong for trying and to use some FOSS alternative because Adobe is an evil megacorp.

It’s a recipe for frustration.