These are NOT Product Reviews

[@SomeFreakingCactus]

This topic deserves a main-channel in-depth video.

[@awholelotofnumbers45]

They should do a collab with the original authors!

[@HouseFresh]

@@awholelotofnumbers45 we would be open to that !

[@wck]

@@awholelotofnumbers45they really should. It's way too much text to expect people to read through. It's basically a whole novel. Make a video, it will reach a lot more people.

[@aviralrastogi]

​@@wckTBH you'll learn much more by just reading the article in 20 minutes than watching this 20 minute clip. Also it won't feel long if you care enough about the topic and are interested in learning more.

[@wck]

@@aviralrastogi sure, but most people aren't going to read that novel-length article. That's the whole point. If you want this information to actually get into any significant amount of people's heads, a video is far more likely to get digested.

[@OctoberNight-rr7ny]

This is exactly why youtube channels like project farm, torque test channel and others are growing in popularity.

[@YTDeletes90PercentOfMyComments]

Once AI generated video becomes realistic this will die too

[@jjoonathan7178]

@@YTDeletes90PercentOfMyComments Until Project Farm and LMG sell out, we'll have a chance

[@ConReese]

​@@YTDeletes90PercentOfMyComments no it won't. Because AI can't actually test the products. That's what people are looking for

[@YTDeletes90PercentOfMyComments]

@@jjoonathan7178 rely on a few organizations for everything. This certainly won't end horrifically

[@YTDeletes90PercentOfMyComments]

@@ConReese Most people are idiots, The second AI can generate a convincing review of a product it's over

[@ChrisTitusTech]

Careful with this. I covered one of the review sites and received a demand letter to take down my video or I would get sued. These giant companies that buy up all the small companies have in-house council that will flex it's might to silence the little guy. I had no choice but to take the video down as I don't have thousands of dollars to waste on a lawyer defending the defamation suit. The burden is on you to PROVE these review sites are doing this, even though we ALL know they are... It's made me a bit jaded and you can not trust ANY online review.

[@TheMajorLeagueGinger]

LTT wouldn't back down, you know Linus would fight it

[@FuckedUpGenius]

Isn't the burden of proof in the US on the plaintiff, and doesn't it require proof of actual malice? Unless it's an international court case, that complicates things a lot. But generally, it's quite difficult to win a defamation lawsuit in the US, because it's hard to proof that someone is telling lies about someone and knew that they were lies. And of course there's the part of having to proof damages. Fighting against these big companies is difficult, for sure. But a lot of them are just barking loudly to scare off the small ones, and don't have the teeth to bite.

[@uuu12343]

LTT is big enough to handle this simply just from showing that threat, they wont dare to provoke the beast

[@veleriphon]

Some states have a function you can use in Discovery to shut down a financial drain lawsuit. Sorry to hear you were otherwise forced to give up.

[@marksnethkamp8633]

​@@FuckedUpGeniusthat doesnt matter, as you have to get a lawyer in the first place. Independent journalists dont have a legal team, so they just take it down instead of spending thousands on retaining something.

[@realms4219]

God I hate those "review" sites. Completely fills up searches for any legitimate reviews and it's literally ads.

[@monsterrun]

Its called data scraping.

[@Balognamanforya]

Hate it as well, bought a gun (the one on the right in my profile) after doing a lot of digging and researching into it, soooo many fake site repeating the same garbage about its "problems". Fast forward, and I find a small, low viewed and subscribed channel with a honest, full review on the rifle, went through the pros, cons, and maintenance of the rifle. And those "problems" everyone else were supposedly having never happened wirh his rifle, so I bought one myself. Every one of the posts (other than his) claimed it couldn't get off 5 rounds without jamming, misfiring, or the charging handle falling off. Well I've put around 2,000 rounds through this rifle, and it has never misfired even once, keep it clean, and no part has ever "fallen off". These sites are just so full of garbage that it should be considered fraud at this point.

[@Balognamanforya]

@ZaHandle it's the M10 X-F second generation. Uses 7.62X39, with probably the cleanest trigger I've had on a gun for a long time. Easy to clean, folding stock, and comes with a 16" (maybe 12?) , or a 18.6" barrel. You'll find a lot of talk about how "bad" it it, but it's never failed on me yet. Only the recommendation is to clean and replace the lubricant. I was suggested this by the in depth video I watched, and it's work like a charm.

[@wojciechrokosa1395]

Southpark was seeing the future...

[@n30ngr3y4]

Southpark saw the present ​@@wojciechrokosa1395

[@HouseFresh]

Thanks guys for sharing and linking to the article.

[@Algoinde]

Thank you for your work! Just bought an air quality analyzer off of your recommendations :)

[@ninjadev64]

Thank you *for* the article!

[@timhi2558]

THANK YOU THANK YOU for bringing this to attention to a large audience. I am a PAID MEDIA MANAGER and Linus it is even WORSE than this. These large sites like Forbes, Buzzfeed etc don't even take affiliate commission anymore. They want UP FRONT, LARGE fees of $1000's of dollars for each position in a listicle. So the "top #1" just means a brand that paid the most to be in that list. It's like $2K for #1, $1200 #2, and so on. These sites make up to $9K PER article, and there are tons and tons on these sites. And they rank on page 1 with no effort. It's all a scam. It is pay to play, and so small businesses are screwed. Only large companies can afford to be put in these lists.

[@n30ngr3y4]

Liking and commenting to get this seen.

[@freedustin]

Wasn't this exactly how 90's video game magazines worked?

[@wilkinlow]

How is this news. Everyone in the industry already knew this.

[@Combba6]

​@@wilkinlow We aren't all industry insiders my dude.

[@timhi2558]

@@wilkinlow "everyone in the industry"... dumb

[@reptarien]

Yeah, I USED to use Google to find recommendations for products, but now I am basically forced to only use the website's own ratings and KZbin for reviews. Google just has borderline NO good information anymore.

[@lockinhinddanger934]

It should be illegal for these sites to exist

[@ChristopherAndersonPirate]

It’s sad that Google has become an evil mega corporation that lies and cheats now. Basically the dark Blade Runner future

[@Michalosnup]

Yeah, the same. Top 10 lists of products were quite a good source of information evenfew years ago, now most of it is ai written of otherwise fake

[@A_2the_lex]

Thank you for linking the article in the description, save hunting for it

[@everythingpony]

Yeah, it's rare they do it

[@-41337]

A note about labs content: It is valuable to see video of products because product pages don't always have shots of the object from every angle and there can be an important detail a consumer wants to see.

[@Beregorn88]

Meaning that the should put a bit more effort on a good article page, rather than in a bad video...

[@makatron]

If you see a list that has zero original pictures or video, yeah it's a scam to make you think they really did a review when they just want your money.

[@teilanittv]

Most people aren't going to google search to see whether they have original images or stock images. I mean thats the crux of going to these listicles is to get quick information to make a buying decision. Fundamentally the problem isn't even necessarily the listicles really, it's people not knowing they have to take these extra steps or perhaps even not caring.

[@makatron]

@@teilanittv they're counting on people not knowing anything and just clicking the affiliate links

[@Draliseth]

I'd never considered that, so thank for pointing out something even though I was unconsciously aware of it! If it were a snake..

[@YoutubePizzer]

The Best Toilets 2024: flushing power, splashback protection, swirl radius, stink prevention

[@o0Donuts0o]

Have they tested the ability to rinse residue from the sides?

[@briancollins7296]

bidet attachment compatibility

[@YagiChanDan]

Skid mark removal quality is a must.

[@wck]

And somehow Swipe by Ludwig is still at the top of each "review" list.

[@ShouPow]

No need to review, just buy a toto and never look back. They've innovated in residue removal and never having residue stick in the first place. Can't wait till I can afford one 🙏🏾

[@jamesreeve6465]

The robot video is a double edged sword. I absolutely refuse to watch AI voice videos and will twitch block any creator that produces them. But..... If I know it's from a legitimate reviewer that actually puts the work in to do a legitimate review then I'd watch it for it's actual technical value. The problem I see is that if I hadn't watched this video and wasn't familiar with LTT I'd immediately and forever shrug LTT off as a garbage product propaganda outlet and never watch another LTT video ever again.

[@0106johnny]

That's why it will not be published under the LTT brand, but as its own thing.

[@merijn5929]

@@0106johnny that saves the ltt brand but I would still forever write off the 'own thing'

[@Sopsy_Hallow]

@@0106johnny i dont see how that changes or fixes the issue at hand. people will dismiss AI voice over videos for a variety of reasons, most relevant one being the content farm garbage association they have. being not part of LTT doesnt change that, and arguably makes it worse as LTT branding could make people trust it more, while a new brand will be written off even faster

[@0106johnny]

@@Sopsy_Hallow These videos don't aim at a general audience. They are there to serve people who want to look up specific specs of a product but are too lazy to read the article.

[@fabulo19]

This makes me appreciate outlets that do genuine technical testing, such as RTings, GN and LTT Labs. Data driven, analytical content is incredibly expensive to produce, but insanely valueable when trying to discern hype from actual value.

[@KTSpeedruns]

I'm pretty sure all the listicals of best Linux distro also have never even come close to touching anything other than Windows or a smartphone.

[@vignesh306]

TRUE

[@Arcidi225]

Yup.

[@SullenSecret]

I've seen recommendations for ReactOS. It's famously a long term development project.

[@wta1518]

I highly doubt they're Windows users. They're almost certainly Mac users.

[@thoughtyness]

@@wta1518 macOS is based on BSD and still is far more unix like than any version of Windows

[@iaina3251]

I'm expecting to see future power supplies having an "LTT Labs Certified" stamp on there somewhere.

[@muyoso]

lmao

[@shaynegadsden]

And it will mean nothing like the rest of them

[@benjaminoechsli1941]

Hey, if that gets people to look up an actual review of a product, that's a step in the right direction.

[@matthewcohen3521]

As long as LTT doesn't sell out or change their standards, if a product manages to earn an LTT stamp of approval then I'm almost definitely going with that product. Linus and the rest of LTT routinely make it clear when reviewing a product that has some flaws but also has some redeeming aspects that they are not ENDORSING it. Especially when it's a paid review, they make it abundantly clear in paid reviews that they were PAID to look at the product and they in no way endorse it.

[@muyoso]

@@matthewcohen3521 Nobody who does paid reviews should be trusted for any reviews. No one who takes funding from the companies whose products they are testing should be trusted. Massive conflict of interest. Like enormous, and LTT has let sponsorships color editorials in the past, go rewatch the gamers nexus dismantling of LTT.

[@NeonCoding]

Just don't use the tiktok voice. Don't use the tiktok voice please god don't use the tiktok voices. Create a new TTS model if you have to. Just have it sound lightly human

[@lieutenanteclipse9975]

Hearing TikTok voice immediately loses whatever video its entire credibility

[@Ojisan642]

This is why I’m glad I am a member of Consumer’s Union (aka Consumer Reports). Their coverage of product categories is limited, but for the categories they cover, they do a good job, and they do the research as well as an annual survey of all the members about the products we own and use.

[@TheVirtualObserver]

I appreciate what you do. Keep up the good work!

[@fenrirwulf9266]

Remember when CR killed off The Consumerist website and laid off everyone there? Yeah I aint so sure chief.

[@matthewcohen3521]

I prefer a website with written articles regarding products I'm considering buying. I can skim a written article a hell of a lot faster than i can scrub through a video trying to find the relevant information to me. I also love having a standardized format of product information, makes it much easier to find the answers I'm looking for going from page to page

[@lieutenanteclipse9975]

For tutorials and guides (anything I need to follow at my own pace) I prefer articles, easier to look and follow. For product reviews I only trust videos, and it has to show the creator actually using it.

[@gwop827]

3:00 I think everyone agrees on: we see these shitty websites and didnt realise how much of a real problem it is.

[@jarradwright1509]

Problem is that many people automatically ignore auto generated videos as there is no trust there that it’s real

[@mecanoman]

For me it's like coming back to forums, where you interact with real people that have on-hands experience on the topic. Internet articles aren't trustworthy anymore, and also there is a ton of video content that does exactly what those shitty articles do, if it is some amazon list involved, then is rigged.

[@1draigon]

10:20 i would recommend working together with a KNOWN trustworthy testing label! In Germany for example where ever you go and shop you will ALWAYS see a logo called „Stiftung Warentest“ which is a very highly respected test

[@DarkGhostHacker]

I wish we had something like this when buying online products, that can be shipped. Into Canada. For people that have no way of physically going into stores.

[@mattymerr701]

Every display I see is TÜV Rheinlan Certified for blue light which is beyond meaningless. Blue light doesn't harm the eyes more than light in general, it is a lie based on blue-light therapy which doesn't even use blue light anymore, and monitors that base themselves on colour accuracy state they are certified when they must have as much blue-light as the rest of the colours to be accurate so it is impossible to be low blue light. I trust German test groups... Not at all

[@firehawk0815]

The best thing about something like Stiftung Warentest is that it's a non-profit organisation whose sole purpose is to protect the consumer from getting scammed into buying a bad product

[@jaspermooren5883]

I don't even think it's the unwillingness of people to go to different plantforms, it's more often the inability to do so. A lot of people genuinely wouldn't know where to go.

[@Illuminationsfromtheattic]

As a product reviewer I truly loathe listacles. I used to write them myself, but the time necessary to do adequate research and create a useful article that wasn't potentially misleading meant that I could never write them fast enough. I eventually couldn't stand producing such content after awhile, so I now almost exclusively write full product reviews.

[@gblargg]

I see this on Amazon Vine when my fellow reviewers clearly haven't even tried the product, yet wrote a review and somehow missed some major flaws.

[@armokthebunny7409]

Every time this conversation comes up I give the same answer. Ban from your search results any domain owned by any organization found to engage in this kind of SEO spam bullshit. I've even found a browser extension that does it for me, now I just need to get together a list of some kind of domains to block.

[@halomika4973]

Friend, would you please link the extension?

[@armokthebunny7409]

@@halomika4973 it's called uBlacklist, it's for firefox

[@Triflixfilms]

Extension please

[@armokthebunny7409]

@@Triflixfilms The extension I use is called uBlacklist

[@impreza0109]

extension please

[@grahamrichards9855]

Mattresses are by far the worst. You will be hard pressed to find any good reviews for a single brand that are not sponsored.

[@subfloor2022]

The best products usually end up being some brand I've never heard of that gets recommended to me by a friend. These brands never show up in these listicles.

[@redstone0234]

Because thèse kind of brands puts their budget on a better product instead of shady marketing

[@imitt12]

I would say that a good way to explain the point of why Labs content is being curated the way it is is because you're basically trying to create an encyclopedia of reviewed products, a reference library if you will. Realistically, no one cares if the content in an encyclopedia isn't particularly entertaining because they're not going to an encyclopedia to be entertained, they're going to it for knowledge.

[@artiumromanov9798]

Good point

[@LordOfNihil]

i bought a chair that turned out to be horrible and wasn't even up to the advertised specs. i gave it such a glaringly bad review that the manufacturer reached out to me, offered me a full refund to take down the review. initially i was ok with this, but the second they started making me jump through hoops i decided to leave the review up.

[@Barquevious_Jackson]

6:37 - I miss when you could curse online. People used to be able to say horrible things nonstop. Now everything has to be bowdlerized for our safety. I hate it here.

[@ranseus]

In the USA, this sort of thing is called "natives advertising" and the pharma industry is the WORST about it.

[@yugimotobutjacked3231]

My parents did me a big favor by instilling "never trust anything on the internet"

[@muizzsiddique]

​@tmtmrm My parent's have become us as teens but in their 50s, with their phones.

[@chrisdodging]

So just on the topic of air purifiers, doing a DIY one with pc fans and merv13/14 filters is a really great route. Works as well or better than commercial ones, is quieter, more power efficient, and replacement filters are generally cheaper

[@l0gic23]

Hmmm got a video on that? ;)

[@chrisdodging]

@@l0gic23 It's deleting the direct youtube links I'm replying with, search for "clean air kits", or "corsi rosenthal box" for a box fan powered version

[@Providence83]

​@@l0gic23BigCliveDotCom has a few videos tearing apart ones and a couple where he makes ones himself as an experiment.

[@kaidenrogers]

The number of times I've gone looking for an *LTT* review on an obscure tech product, knowing full well how obscure it is and how unlikely it is that it was notable enough for its own video, and (unsurprisingly) found no coverage of it by LTT, is easily more than a handful of times. The content farm will change this for the better.

[@VoraciousPhantasma]

Just read the entire article on HouseFresh. Holy fuck it’s scathing. Hats off to Gisele Navarro and the entire team at HF for putting things in such plain terms. How is Google still letting this happen?

[@BirchPig]

Not letting. Theyve been gamed. They have an algorithm that reccomends "the best website" These websites learned what Google defines as the best based on what Google users click on most. These websites will then artificially inflate their website with keywords and search terms and all the other metrics Google looks for and humans search for to basically guarantee top results. To fix it Google has to fix all their users and their algorithm. Not just their algorithm. Too many grandmas and idiots or just simply unknowlegable people (who would have guessed) are the ones searching and then falling for these websites so they get reccomended more.

[@douglasboyle6544]

I always knew these things were pretty shady but I didn't know the reasons why, I read the article and boy was it eye-opening. Thanks for putting this out for more people to see. I agree with many of the other commentators that doing video about this might be a good service.

[@whosdr]

Regarding the whole AI voice thing.. can the transcript be uploaded so that we can choose to mute the audio and just have the final 1:1 script via captions?

[@_dreaM-_]

I think a lot of people see the labs as an extension of LTT entertainment when really it should be viewed as an information database that sits beside LTT rather than with it

[@John_1920]

I've come to realize over the many years of consuming both PC parts, as well as laptops and pre-built PCs, that model numbers for these things can - and often will - differ from country to country. How would you go about taking this into account? Genuine question asked because I've often searched up Norwegian bought laptops or peripherals on the American websites, only to find no results, but finding immediate results when searching on the Norwegian websites.

[@cheeseisgreat24]

I feel like this is something Google could absolutely solve by manually weighting the results with a relatively small team of trained BS spotters. You wouldn’t even have to do it page by page, but by source. Then create a threshold where once a source goes below a certain trust level, any page they post that has an Amazon affiliate link on it gets buried lower down in the search results. Because srsly, Buzzfeed isn’t a product reviewer, they should absolutely never show up on the first page of results when I google a product I want to find info about.

[@nicholasvinen]

Probably could train an LLM to identify the BS pretty reliably too.

[@cheeseisgreat24]

@@nicholasvinen Yes, but an LLM is unpredictable and inconsistent. You really wouldn’t want to risk pissing off the good actors even more while also pissing off the bad actors making buckets of money, that’s a recipe for getting sued to hell and back.

[@briandeschene8424]

Adam Savage (formerly of Mythbusters) covered this on his Tested channel. He stated it as: “The signal to noise ratio of useful product search information is becoming alarmingly low.”

[@shellderp]

I found this too, I can't trust a "best" products page for anything. Especially on youtube where theres a bunch of AI generated videos pretending to review products

[@matthewcohen3521]

I've also been watching this for years. A decade ago the internet would help buyers make informed purchases. Now buyers are all but intentionally mislead so some media conglomerate can make a buck off their purchase of the shitty products THAT THEY TOLD THEM TO BUY.

[@elephystry]

I recall a few months ago I wanted to know about Xbox 360 emulators. I found an article that listed the top 5, and 4 of them were scams. It was surreal.

[@Ninjanate750]

I've written a few listacles like this through freelance contracts. It's exactly what you think it is. Essentially, contractors are given a template to follow, certain keywords, and an SEO checker to verify. Most of the time, unless they give you specific products to recommend, you'll be taking from the first few pages of Amazon and providing listings for them to then add affiliate links. Most of the companies I've seen them use underpaid writers to get something thats a step above AI, but they stifle creativity for SEO optimization and jamming as many products as possible into 2000 words. I'd love to share more, such as a look at their templates and how they dole out listacles to different contractors who ghostwrite and make it possible for one name to pump out 20-30 articles a month

[@justyo96]

If Linus hosts the new channel when it first launches, I think it will have a greater chance of becoming profitable. I would watch it, but I would probably pass if it was all AI voiceovers (and I think many would feel the same). Why not do a test run with live hosting? Just to see what kind of numbers the videos can pull over the first few months.

[@artiumromanov9798]

Hahaha what if they made a photorealistic Vtuber Linus?

[@conquerncam]

i wish there was a chrome extension that would articles for affiliate links and highlight them in red or something

[@nicholasvinen]

Or just hide/block the garbage articles in the first place.

[@conquerncam]

@@nicholasvinen i like that idea. not sure how it would differentiate between real and fake though, as even legit reviews have affiliate links

[@menacingdonutz]

I’ve assumed this was the case for a pretty long time. I take my time doing research on anything expensive/important that I am going to purchase. I’m sure I don’t always end up with the best option but I do try to avoid giving any of these fraudulent sites any money.

[@Drivewaybuilt]

I hate those top # listicles - almost all of them are product ads placed inline. Cameras are bad there and the ones for pc tools/apps are quote annoying since it is obvious they didn't even install them - could have taken 3 minutes

[@supdawg7811]

I found that I’ve gone from using the Internet to read reviews of devices from small or unknown brands to make my purchasing decisions to the old-timey style of “the only thing I can trust is a brand I can trust”, which is sad. I basically can only trust most of Sony, Apple, Klipsch, Audio-Technica, and some others at this point.

[@jess_o]

@1:50 I'm with you, Luke. Passing off lazy marketing material re-hashes as a legitimate and independent review is fraud in my book.

[@joooja]

When I heard Tiktok was being used to find reviews I didnt understand at first, but it definitely feels more legitimate now

[@DerpyLaron]

Linus struggling to explain why good testing with humans with standards reminds me of the time I tried very hard to explain to people why the "extreme overspending" they see in government funded testing facilities (like water) isn't overspending and humans doing things properly is just that expensive.

[@pfleegore]

I would be really curious what, if any, inspiration and lessons learned you may have taken from sites like Crinacle, Project Farm, or America's test kitchen. To me, Crinacle's database of headphones seems like the closets to what you are building and it could be a good point of comparison to help explain your vision and how it will be similar/different.

[@pezz2345]

Linus you can sell a Enterprise Subscription to me for the Labs data easily. I would 100% go ahead and buy it. I work at a large Canadian Financial Institution as an Assistive Technologist and one of the most frustrating parts of my jobs is just sorting through listings for products wanting to pull my eyeballs 👀 out due to how inconsistent or lacking in information many manufacturers product / datasheets are. Something easily filterable with a large breadth of gear (and maybe even with a long term gear use feedback mechanism for any common issues? Idk). I can also tell you that we do have a number of other crews in the company responsible for just general enterprise hardware validation as well. This is 100% a product that I can see having value for enterprise customers. And then just me as a regular guy looking for a USB-C cable with actually good specs? I'd love it!

[@nathnathn]

For me I absolutely never considered those lists as reviews. In some cases i would use them to get some brand names when I couldn’t find any so i could then go and research them. “Pretty much like ad’s”. Most end up dismissed as worthless crap but if I don’t end up with a good one in the process i atleast usually learn some search terms so i can search for an actual good one.

[@VoraciousPhantasma]

16:03 sounds like an easy fix, add a part in the AI’s script that tells viewers “Review is voiced by AI but the script is written & the products are tested by real people in a real lab”

[@lamardoss]

There's no way i would search for computer product recommendations from Tiktok.

[@Ruinwyn]

I recently needed to buy new bone conducting headphones and tried to find any info on different brands. The number of "reviews" that just listed one brands lineup as "best budget", "best premium", "best overall" without even mentioning what the differences were other than price was disheartening. It was just affiliate link farming, from major publishers.

[@technicolourmyles]

This all makes perfect sense to me. Finally, one business NOT doing everything in the name of just short term profit. I pray more businesses and corporations start doing the same, but I'll probably have to settle for just LMG for a while. The only thing I think you should watch out for is the fact that people naturally distrust content that uses an AI voice, which might hurt the credibility of the data if the person seeking it out doesn't already know who runs the Labs. Maybe add a quick pre-recorded disclaimer at the start of the video acknowledging that the following content is narrated by AI, but the data has been tested and written 100% by a human. I think that would help a lot.

[@EgnachHelton]

Is there a browser extension you can use to filter these search results?

[@impreza0109]

trying to find it as well

[@ZonkerRoberts]

It used to be that I almost never looked beyond the first page of Google search results and never really needed to. Now I usually *have* to go to the second page of results to find anything useful at all because the first page is all SEO'd crap.

[@judgywudgy]

Trying to find good reviews in article format is so bad nowadays, I go straight to youtube. It's not even worth trying to wade through all the SEO garbage.

[@U_n_d_e_r_S_c_o_r_e_]

I used to work a company that was very big in the cybeersec space, and they would create 'top 10' lists of different software, while always placing their affiliated / owned services towards the top. They didnt even own the software, it was white-labbeled. It's just insane.

[@mmseng2]

Re: Anonymous feedback forms, if you're not already, including a field at the end that basically says "If you are cool with follow up questions you may provide your name/contact here", is a nice feature. Also, I personally prefer to see the questions delineated as "Are you cool with a follow up if the surveyors so choose? Y/N", and "Do you want a follow up? Y/N", because those are very different questions.

[@jamescritchlow3445]

could you do a power supply round up like once a year to show side by side comparisons of the labs findings?

[@uonadtehrrocks]

Watching this a week later the “tax write off” made me LOL pretty hard

[@birphon]

yeah the review sites ive noticed are hard garbage. just a load of amazon based links and information. ive looked at some of these lists and gone "did this person touch it? like it feel so AI generated because of how over generically over the top"

[@JennyDarukat]

Honestly I would love to see line-by-line cost calculations for these kinds of operations as a way to raise more insight into the industry and production. Far too many people have far too little understanding of the process and logistics of testing, content creation, or running a business and paying people at the end of the day and I think we can all benefit from more knowledge here to inform more ethical decision-making on an individual consumer basis, if nothing else.

[@sky0kast0]

Gotta quote miss frizzle at this time make mistakes get messy make a difference

[@roowut]

Anyone know what like said at 8:29?

[@cassandraleone6719]

I was hired as a writer for a company that would make “car reviews” for websites I’m certain no one had ever heard of on the behest of car dealerships. For example, I’d be given a topic like the 2021 Chevy Equinox. I’d crap out 2000 words using just the manufacturer’s website for info with a plug for whatever dealer commissioned it at the end. It was soul crushing. I had never driven the cars I was writing about, nor been to the dealerships I was recommending. It was like trying to get blood from a stone week after week but it was the only income I had for a time. I’m glad I never had a byline from that shady company. I was ashamed I’d ever written that bottom of the barrel crap just to make a buck.

[@jronmantech]

Listicals are annoying…Amazon is annoying… It is not very common to see a listical that sends you to something other than Amazon.

[@greengenesis]

I am actually really looking forward to the labs content. It is very difficult to find sources anywhere that have tested a large amount of them so you can really compare them on an equal basis. (Power supplies but also other pc parts)

[@eddiehuang6233]

3:45 Linus talks about why 80,000$ area rugs exist, does anyone have any idea where he talks about this? I'm interested. Thanks!

[@ninjapwnsatlyfe]

Different but in the same realm, got a letter from ATT that says my router and internet are now super extremely vulnerable and there is nothing I can do about it.. except buy and install McAfee. McAfee literally has ads through an ISP now. Unsure if this is a thing but my first time seeing it

[@necrojoe]

BTOD (the office furniture guys) rail on the affiliate-sponsored "top 10" style lists when they find horrible "best desk chair" lists. Those who know the narket can tell that every single recommendation on the list is a bad one.

[@Plutouz]

Looking up a companys name on google and getting 4-5 competitor companies show up first that i have to scroll by is the most annoying thing

[@fyrestorme]

13:20 rip floatplane?

[@mostlypostie1]

This is the exact reason why the Google search engine is dying. The crap in the results is relentless. It's the reason why people are staying on KZbin, as an example, to search for information instead of using traditional search engines

[@yonathanluther]

The Avalanche of B*llsh*t is such a good name for a band.

[@petermen9914]

IDK if they were talking about it in another wan show, but do they know if it will be on the LTT channel or more like some LABS channel in the power supply series?

[@lostskull7467]

5:06 Watching on the bus home at 144p made me laugh out loud 🤣

[@BrownFoxWarrior]

The whole idea makes me think of the kinds of informational videos that might be embedded in some kind of science learning webpage or even just an encyclopedia page. A standardized, to-the-point segment that gives a rundown of what's needed.

[@TheEvilErmine]

Found this exact problem while searching for a good air purifier. Almost every review followed the same list of superficial and pointless points, looking more like an ad. Could never find any testing about VOCs removal when the producer claimed there was. In the end I bought a more expensive one from a reputable company that didn't appear in any of those reviews and I'm satisfied.

[@clanholmes]

Why I support Consumer Reports

[@z50king29]

How do people not realize this? I stopped looking at those dumb list articles when they all started using affiliate links. Duh

[@Pknuckles1804]

This is the reason I've actually gone back to brick and mortar stores. I want to physically hold and experience products these days.

[@nathnathn]

Some of these things i wonder if they could end up being sued. Person buys because of their fake review - item catches fire because its that crap and damages house - it was bought on reliance of their fraudulent assurances meaning they might have some liability though it probably depends on the court.

[@simsim6990]

I reccomended this to my two best friends, this is great that you cover this

[@ginnipig]

Project Farm and others like him FTW.

[@muyoso]

GOAT youtube channel.

[@skartimus]

Man I was trying to explain the concept of this to my girlfriend one time. She had no idea. We have no idea how lucky we are in the tech space, you find this kind of stuff much more when you're buying crap for your house or something like that. Good luck trying to explain this to an older person.

[@larsmurdochkalsta8808]

I drove an outdoors journalist for a publication that shall remain unnamed last summer. One of the things he talked about is how it got bought out about a year after he joined. So he's still writes a good articles and still gets sent places to be his job, but particularly as he's relatively junior a lot of what he does is get sent products from a bunch of companies to test, and form an opinion on but he's give an a ton of things and not really given the resources to test them

[@connorsavugot1672]

Where are these power supply videos posted? I would like to view them for myself. Are they on a separate channel?

[@syncrossus]

THANK YOU for linking to the article

[@4.0.4]

Whenever I look for a review for some product that I don't understand, I try to find someone who does only that, and who clearly has the products on hand.

[@Chasing-the-outdoors]

Every site also has these reviews: “this was collected as part of a promotion” pulled from other sites. No real unpaid reviews exist anymore.

[@PixelPusherGames]

wish it would hurry up tho . how do i make it update manualy

[@Speaker264]

For the "AI Linus" I think that it would be pretty cool, if you combine voices of multiple people in to one.

The worst part is that such review sites together with braindead fakenews articles filled up my google news screen on my smartphone. No matter what settings I change and what I "do not want to see again", the algorithm of google news wants to feed me pure shit.