youtube.com

dinckelman , to Technology in Uncovering Every Lie in MKBHD's Softball Interview; a scathing critique of 'brand safe' influencers

Quite a shame that the vast majority of people this video is targeted at will just not care. Especially in the US, or the UAE, if your Apple device breaks, you just get another Apple device, because it's a status symbol.

On the topic of Marques though - I haven't watched any of his stuff in quite a while, after I've had an eye-opened moment from his content. He would scald and roast companies that make mistakes, and make bad choices, but when Apple, or lets say Tesla, make the same mistake, he lets them off the hook. That's not unbiased journalism at all.

mightyfoolish OP ,

Probably has to suck-up inorder to get products early so his reviews can be viewed first. I wish all of these reviewers would be honest as Steve Burke (GamersNexus).

dinckelman ,

Being honest isn't where the money is. Not reaching out towards that takes willpower, and strong principles

ikidd ,
@ikidd@lemmy.world avatar

https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectFarm

This guy has 3M subs and doesn't take free samples for reviews. I think he's doing OK, and damn, if you want a detailed comparison of something, he's the guy. He's branched away from the mainly mechanic oriented stuff recently, but still staying unbought.

reddit_sux ,

This is true of apple as reviewers critical of them are never invited for their events.

n2burns ,

Probably has to suck-up inorder to get products early so his reviews can be viewed first.

No. Apple and most major tech companies are pretty good about giving reviewer samples to anyone with a large enough audience. The only thing that gets you disqualified is breaking the moratorium and releasing your review early.

What conducting softball interviews gets you is more interviews.

mightyfoolish OP ,

As @reddit_sux stated there are more perks than just earlier reviews.

Sometimes a large company will stop assisting you if you go against their talking points. For example Hardware Unboxed got in trouble for saying, raytracing isn't as big of a deal as Nvidia is making it and it will remain that way for at least the next few years. Thanks to influence of several big Youtubers (like Steve Burke and Linus Sebastien), Nvidia changed their minds.

stealth_cookies ,

major tech companies are pretty good about giving reviewer samples to anyone with a large enough audience

That isn't true, for example LTT doesn't get seeded Apple products anymore because of what they have said about Apple. NVidia has also been caught revoking early access to products to some outlets because they were unhappy about reporting as well.

slumberlust ,

Are you assuming this simply because apple doesn't state the reason they end a relationship? Access journalism isn't new or unique to apple.

recursive_recursion ,
@recursive_recursion@programming.dev avatar
mightyfoolish OP ,

I legit upvoted every Thanks Steve comment right before I posted this thread! 🤣 I love that meme.

recursive_recursion ,
@recursive_recursion@programming.dev avatar

ditto😆

Intel really set themselves up for a perfect memefest😂

Lucidlethargy ,
@Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works avatar

Yes! He's literally done this ever since his first iPhone review. I think it was the iPhone 4s? Somewhere around that time...

Rakonat ,

Not to defend him (can't really stand his videos at all) but he's not a journalist. He's just a freelance spokesman for products that will sponsor him.

OldWoodFrame ,

I think it's clear he's a fan of Apple and Tesla but he does make negative statements about them, the Cyber truck was not a positive review and he always criticized the fit and finish of Teslas. And he critiques Apple's idiosyncracies like the proprietary charger and lack of calculator app on the iPad.

I guess my point is that he's not a journalist he's a reviewer, we are tuning in for his judgement, his opinion. If he personally likes the products from a certain company, that's not a bias that impacts his capacity to do his job well.

Like movie reviewer giving Pixar a bunch of 10/10 reviews, and then criticizing Cars 2 as a mediocre cash grab. Maybe they are biased for Pixar, or maybe Pixar just puts out a lot of good movies. As long as you're calling out the bad moves, that's what we want from a reviewer.

The fair concern is when he gets exclusive access like this, I don't necessarily care about the puff piece interview but you hope it doesn't influence his future reviews.

viperex ,

MKBHD the tech reviewer and Louis Rossmann the tech repairer get the tech at different points in their life cycles. Does anyone expect MKBHD to open up a MacBook and start probing motherboard components? He reviews the form and function of new tech when they're polished and running at their peak. Louis sees them when something has gone wrong

Lucidlethargy , to Technology in Uncovering Every Lie in MKBHD's Softball Interview; a scathing critique of 'brand safe' influencers
@Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works avatar

I lost interest in that guy on the left the minute he reviewed one of the iPhone's for the first time, and gave the feature-poor handset this insanely positive review.

He's a shill. He does great videos, but he's a shill.

mightyfoolish OP ,

He does great videos

Mbkhd's studio, talking/narrating skills, editing skills, and skills in explaining tech in simple terms are extremely high quality. He just needs to be more honest about famous companies.

Lucidlethargy ,
@Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works avatar

Yup, I agree. That's a really big "just", though. I'd rather watch a poorly edited video that's honest, than a high end video that glosses over major defects and difficiencies. I mean, let's call it what it is, Marques makes ads.

Linkerbaan ,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

MKBHD has great editing but he's not tech savy at all.

He has great presentation and videography but when it comes to actual knowledge it's the blind leading the blind.

mightyfoolish OP ,

His channel is mainly reviews. He isn't running a "makers" channel or even one like GamersNexus (explaining things in depth) or LTT (covers broad range of topics and demonstrations).

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Idk, I think his tech knowledge is fine. He knows far more about cameras than I ever will (largely because I don't care), and I honestly haven't seen anything where he's lacking on the tech knowledge front. His reviews, when critical, are usually quite comprehensive. For his audience and the products he reviews, he's plenty tech savvy and probably more tech savvy than most of his audience. He just doesn't put that on display unless it's relevant to the video.

His channel is all about "hey, check out this cool tech gadget," and not "let's deep dive into this particular tech niche." Do you want to know how a given EV is to drive? MKBHD got you. Are you trying to decide between EVs? Comparing MKBHD's videos may help narrow it down, but probably isn't sufficient. Do you want a teardown of an EV to repair something? Look elsewhere.

I occasionally watch his videos, but not enough to sub. I like his presentation style and his critical videos are generally pretty insightful.

Linkerbaan ,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

He knows more than his audience but he doesn't know what he's talking about.

A prime example is when he kept asking for bigger batteries. After those arrived he suddenly realized that the phone becomes very heavy. Because the battery is one of the heaviest and most space using components.

This right to repair greenwashing too. Someone tells MKBHD a nice story and he laps it up. He just has a wishlist of features but there's no technical background to understand the tradeoffs manufacturers are making.

sugar_in_your_tea ,

I'm sure he understands them, but at the end of the day, his job is to get views. So he's going to complain when the UX is bad, regardless of the technical motivations, because that's what customers will notice.

Linkerbaan ,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

No he doesn't understand.

He does have a good eye for design. And he's used a lot of phones so he certainly isn't inexperienced. But he doesn't understand what tradeoffs are made and why.

Such as bigger battery = heavy big phone. Or newer generation chips being more efficient with the same battery capacity. And recycled Aluminum being nothing special, as it's one of the easiest materials to recycle but recycling it does consume a lot of energy.

Or in this case, repairability of the phone.

kindenough , to HipHopHeads in Digable Planets - Where I'm From
@kindenough@kbin.earth avatar

Man I dig Digable.

I am from Amsterdam and my partner back then was from the US. She introduced me to their first album and we discussed the lyrics. Played it on repeat.

This is how I learned about Thomas and Souter, how I learned about Roe versus Wade. These corrupt fuckers still at it.

Like Butterfly says,

The fascists are some heavy dudes

stealth_cookies , to Technology in Uncovering Every Lie in MKBHD's Softball Interview; a scathing critique of 'brand safe' influencers

I had called out the bullshit about devices being less durable if you make them more repairable on MKBHDs video, but of course it got lost in the comments. Apple just refuses to make the compromises that would allow for durable and repairable devices. Not to mention that a repair being difficult shouldn't be used for justification for blocking repair or making it impossible/not worth it to get parts.

uhN0id , to Games in MODERN WARFARE: How Call of Duty 4 Changed a Genre Forever
@uhN0id@programming.dev avatar

When this game came out I hated it because I loved the original Call of Duty games that were super slow paced and more realistic. But eventually it became my main game playing till 4am on Xbox with friends. I miss the simplicity of COD MW.

dogslayeggs ,

While I preferred MW2 to MW, I still really liked MW and thought it was better than all others besides MW2. I just got really good at cheesing certain class combos in MW2, which was the only way for me to be good at those games. I'm only OK at FPS games and was able to make use of things like the riot shield for holding points or heartbeat sensor and reload perks for C4 to get good K/D ratios. In MW I got a decent percentage of my kills from Danger Close because I died a lot, and goddamn that was a funny way to kill someone. I also felt MW2 was less sniper-friendly, and I suck both as a sniper and against snipers.

Zannsolo ,

The original Call of Duty was my favorite. I didn't have a good computer so I played it at a LAN center for a good while. The game also kicked off a domino of events in my friends life when I gave him a CD key for it.

My friend got pretty good at the game and joined a competitive CAL-M team, and even played at a CPL championship tournament. Well after he graduated college one of the people he played with on the team and he started a company making websites. When he told me what he was doing, I told him just don't blow too much money on it.

They ended up pivoting from their original plan of making fitness blog sites, among other niche sites they felt could generate ad revenue to making flash game sites.

They did moderately well in their endeavors and scored some high ranking search results for a few categories of flash games. They were making hundreds of thousands each and he moved to another to save on income tax. In the new state he met a woman and they ended up getting married, so I was able to draw a direct path from me giving him a CD key for cod to him getting moderately wealthy and finding a wife.

Unfortunately the last domino hasn't fallen, and it turned out she was a lieing, money grubbing, cheating whore. Flash games died out but my friend moved on to other things. He is doing great, happily remarried and we both had our first kid within about a month of each other.

Summzashi ,

Call of duty was never super slow paced. You must be confused with Operation Flashpoint or the likes.

uhN0id ,
@uhN0id@programming.dev avatar

Maybe not super slow paced like Squad but super slow paced compared to today's COD.

https://youtu.be/GfrEy6xcyec?si=QL4lMkM4QvabkgvQ

Back when you'd hold positions and provide cover fire while someone would slowly push up or flank etc. It was a much different game before MW released.

I used to play this at gaming cafes in the early/mid 2000s with my buddies before we all had proper gaming computers alongside Battlefield 1942. Definitely not confusing it for Operation Flashpoint haha.

Lucidlethargy , to Technology in Uncovering Every Lie in MKBHD's Softball Interview; a scathing critique of 'brand safe' influencers
@Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works avatar

I like this guy. I don't watch him often, but even 5 minutes in I'm enjoying his thoroughness. We need this in the era of misinformation we're in today.

mightyfoolish OP ,

He is every harsh on manufacturers and OEMs when they do bad things. He gave up on being nice and I fully understand why. We need more regulations in the tech industry, especially around warranty claims.

Fades ,

fuck that, you're missing the forest for the trees - we need RIGHT TO REPAIR LEGISLATION.

modeler ,

I agree, so much legislation is broken, the legislators aren't doing shit, so we citizens need to fix it!

But we could start with the right to repair.

pop , to Technology in Uncovering Every Lie in MKBHD's Softball Interview; a scathing critique of 'brand safe' influencers

Every youtube reviewer's goal is to be popular enough to be a paid shill. It's money they're after, not your praises.

And Apple marketing invests a lot in their image in internet discussions. There are lot of shills and a lot of sock-puppets that prop them up. Every marketing company does but go to any popular Apple posts on reddit, hackernews, or Twitter, they just have same pattern.

Why this isn't obvious is just idk.

Fades ,

Every youtube reviewer’s goal is to be popular enough to be a paid shill. It’s money they’re after, not your praises.

absolutely.

There are lot of shills and a lot of sock-puppets that prop them up.

Prop them up? Occam's razor would imply that it is more-so people following trends than it is apple paying shills to get in the trenches and push lies.

they just have same pattern.

Why this isn’t obvious is just idk.

if it's so obvious, surely you can provide some tangible proof? Like I'm confident apple and every other company does this but the way you framed this take it seems to imply that is the main driver and the majority of positive sentiment is just bots or scripts, which is just absurd.

You think Apple is paying all the kids to clown on non-imessage bubble colors? Or is it more reasonable that there is something closer to a hive-mind in regards to what is trendy and popular/a status symbol?

sugar_in_your_tea ,

Exactly. Apple only cares about the bigger fish, like big YouTube reviewers and their own presentation. They let their fanbase take care of the rest.

TORFdot0 ,

I really don’t think large brands like Apple have that many paid shills. Apple has a large fan base and good marketing. People that like their devices just naturally repeat the marketing line because they don’t really know why they like the devices, Apple marketing just told them that is why it is good. And fanatics will spend mental energy defending them for no good reason

Lemmy and the fediverse have sizable Apple communities and Apple is definitely not paying anyone to shill here

catloaf ,

Paying influencers, either in money or gadgets, is part of Apple's advertising. Their whole appeal is their popularity and "affordable luxury".

I'm not expressing this well, but I hope you know what I mean.

ampersandrew , to Games in MODERN WARFARE: How Call of Duty 4 Changed a Genre Forever
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

It's a great game, but it's hard to argue that it didn't change the genre, and all of multiplayer video games, for the worse. Multiplayer games can no longer be designed to just be fun. They must also be addictive, they must retain players, they must keep them coming back, etc. using every manipulative trick in the book like XP bars and unlocks. You might say MMORPGs did this first, but this was the application of that feedback loop to a competitive action game.

ItalianSkeletonGaming ,
@ItalianSkeletonGaming@mastodon.social avatar

@ampersandrew @simple Whenever someone says that X ruined Y, I always hypothesize that it may be the opposite case: the reason why so many copied its addictive nature is because the publishers themselves were already searching for ways to maximize player engagement, and therefore increased revenue through monetization.

COD itself didn't ruin multiplayer games, it only showed an easy and replicable way

If you may forgive the metaphor: a weed can only spread if the soil itself is fertile

ampersandrew ,
@ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

Potentially true. Or it was an accident that proved more lucrative than they thought it would. At the very least, it got there first and showed everyone else how to ruin multiplayer games.

TORFdot0 ,

The RPG mechanics didn’t ruin the genre although I did prefer the mechanics of earlier CoDs where in multiplayer everything is unlocked and you just use whatever you want.

What ruined the genre was the free-to-play style monetization and season pass paid update model.

Black Ops 2 was the first CoD to have paid skins, but we would have no idea how bad things would become. By the time Fortnite came along the multiplayer FPS genre was already long ruined

Crackhappy , to Coffee in James Hoffmann: The Beginner’s Guide to Coffee Machine Maintenance
@Crackhappy@lemmy.world avatar

French press crowd over here, I don't have any of these problems.

dessimbelackis ,

Woo! French Press crew numba 1111!!!!

Cough cough excuse me, pardon my outburst

CCMan1701A ,

What do you use to heat up the water?

Crackhappy ,
@Crackhappy@lemmy.world avatar

Kettle

CCMan1701A ,

Same. I descale mine every few months, my water is hard 💪

Crackhappy ,
@Crackhappy@lemmy.world avatar

As your wife is fond of saying, so are you.

the_toast_is_gone , to Technology in Uncovering Every Lie in MKBHD's Softball Interview; a scathing critique of 'brand safe' influencers

I lost count of how many specific part numbers of defective Apple products he rattled off with the same design flaw, but that was a stunning display. Just exposed that they know these things are problems and just don't care, because people will keep buying their products.

mightyfoolish OP ,

Reminds me of Pokemon. I skipped out on Scarlet and Violet (9th gen) because I knew it was going to carry the issues 8th gen had. Both generations still sold extremely well. 9th gen didn't review as well 8th gen but the reviews were still carried by nostalgia and not critical enough.

woelkchen , to Games in MODERN WARFARE: How Call of Duty 4 Changed a Genre Forever
@woelkchen@lemmy.world avatar
micka190 ,

We're eating good in 2024!

Auzy , to Politics in See Biden's fiery speech after shaky debate performance

The only policy anyone will remember Trump has, is that he's racist.

He made sure everyone knew that and kept emphasizing it. And it was the only one that wasn't made up on the spot. He seemed to have lots of ways to blame foreigners for everything

And he wanted everyone to know he's better at golf. That I believe, considering he spent his 4 years in office playing it (the only thing he seemingly did was steal some paperwork and blame others).

Also, why didn't CNN bring up stuff like the fact Trump told people to shove a lightbulb up their ass to cure covid? Or follow up on the lies. They should have had a ticker at the bottom with a fact check

Neato ,
@Neato@ttrpg.network avatar

He's not better at golf. He cheats blatantly. People play with him just to claim trump cheated against them.

Auzy ,

Trump cheated in more ways than one. So it's hard to keep up

Gamerman153 , to Politics in See Biden's fiery speech after shaky debate performance

How bout we just leave the position open? Let's try that for four years.

coffeetest , (edited ) to Politics in See Biden's fiery speech after shaky debate performance

Biden had a bad debate night. But putting it in context, he's had plenty of good or excellent speeches, its just that no one notices and media doesn't care when things go well. Got to get those clicks.

bobs_monkey ,

It seemed to me that Biden was just in a state of shock at how much bullshit was coming out of Trump's mouth

coffeetest ,

I think you are right on that. That was at least part of it. Biden's mistake was expecting it to be a debate and not whatever that event was.

bobs_monkey ,

That's probably why they chose to go without a live audience. I don't wanna get conspiratorial, but all this shit seems to coincidental to not be on purpose.

randy ,
@randy@social.coop avatar

@bobs_monkey @coffeetest as we're we all

sqgl ,

Really? You expected Trump to base his speech on facts?

sqgl ,

That should have been expected from Trump. Biden should have memorized statistics to counter the predictable bullshit.

Not that memorizing stuff is important for the job but it would have been effective in the debate for viewers who just won't fact check anything.

Fades , to Technology in Uncovering Every Lie in MKBHD's Softball Interview; a scathing critique of 'brand safe' influencers

lmao and here I keep hearing about how MKBHD is SOOOOOO unbiased and has a following because he doesn't give easy reviews

mightyfoolish OP ,

His review on those AI gadgets were pretty scathing. Though, the claim here is that he is biased for Apple, not for whoever sends him devices.

phoneymouse ,

In another video on what his favorite phone is though, he picks an android. He does use both phones daily though because he likes to stay up to date and enmeshed in both OSes for his job. He prefers android though. If he covers a lot of Apple videos it’s probably just because those attract the most clicks. There is an entire media ecosystem around Apple. Some YouTubers purely post speculation videos about Apple. Many just repost different variations of Apple’s history and the Steve Jobs story.

Linkerbaan ,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

People critical of Apple get put on the Apple media blacklist.

MKBHD sucks up to Apple so he keeps getting early access to their events because Apple = Views.

sunzu ,

The grifter cycle...

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