Technology

TLDR: The LTT fan base has a culture of calling out bad actions by the company not because they hate them but because they hold them to standards.

A small company Billet Labs sent them a prototype to test. That prototype was designed for a 3000 series graphics card. LTT didn't have that card at hand so they asked if it was ok to use a 4000 series card. Billet said they could try but it wasn't designed for their card. LTT published a review of the prototype based on a scenario it wasn't designed for and Linus told people it was a bad product. They later agreed to return it to Billet. They ended up auctioning it off at a convention (where some of Billet's competition was).

Ultimately LTT paid an undisclosed amount to Billet. The actual damages of selling off a start ups only prototype (possibly to their competition) after agreeing to return it, after telling people not to buy a product (which was only a prototype) based on how it performed in a situation it wasn't intended to be in is unmeasurable. They could have effectively destroyed years of work and killed the future of those people.

Linus said he didn't use the correct card because it would have cost ~$800. The issue isn't that he didn't buy that correct card it's that he didn't decide to not publish a video on it if he couldn't do it right.

On a podcast the other week Linus praised the LTT fans for not just agreeing with everything he does, creating a toxic positive feedback loop. This is them calling him out on his errors.

Yes other companies make these same terrible decisions. But their bad actions don't justify LTT's bad actions.