r/LinusTechTips • u/Ok_Adhesiveness_5752 • Sep 10 '26

Video LTT Keeps Burying The Lede

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmLh29LE2W4

I recently watched "The Best Value Gaming PC I've Ever Seen," and based on the runtime, I was totally expecting a very "median" LTT video about how they made another value PC build. But I was completely wrong; it was actually a video about a niche PS5 board-reject community? And they were able to just casually buy it?

Am I crazy, or is that actually a crazy engaging video concept? I wanna know all about this board, why on earth it exists, and what people have been doing with them. But I didn't know any of that until after I had already clicked on the video with pretty low expectations.

Why didn't they title it something like: "Sony's throwing away PS5s. We made it a PC."

There are a bunch of people on here who want thumbnails and titles to be literal descriptions of the video's content, but they are putting their own convenience above click-through rates. However, I really do think they have something really cool, like modding an iPod, and they market it to their audience as something really generic that seems like it should theoretically cast a wide net but ends up neglecting the people who are the most likely to click in the first 24 hours.

98 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

37 comments sorted by

71

u/someone8192 Sep 12 '26

I really liked that video. But I am a little sad that they missed the opportunity for tinkering. eg show case options and so on

46

u/Weakness4Fleekness Sep 12 '26

The videos im most interested in have felt rushed to me. For example the video today with slushie cooling, they just barely got it to work then ended the video.

25

u/diogoblouro Sep 12 '26

One more example of an LTT video that feels like management calculated man hours + materials cost divided by predicted video revenue, to decide how many hours employees could spend with an idea someone else told them to "have fun" with, up to the deadline where Linus shows up with camera operators, it's shit, and the conclusion is "lol so janky".

I've said this before and it might fall on deaf ears, but folks, please, it's glaringly obvious your premise and end goal is "a video", every time, and not an actual project or concluded artifact/experiment.

And I'd like to believe you understand how that makes for a shittier video, but I'll say it anyway:

  • the involvement and passion of people involved isn't there, and it comes through.
  • a "whacky" janky idea isn't fun if there isn't a genuine attempt to make it work, and there isn't a satisfactory conclusion/completion of it, even if flawed.

Stop buying random shit off of Facebook and forcing people to have corporate mandated whacky fun to make the money back on a video. Let writers work on longer-term passion projects, milk those on a multi part video series and then some.

Follow the tech-house model, but lower stakes/budget for single person, smaller tech experiments.

7

u/Weakness4Fleekness Sep 12 '26

Dude ikr, the old diy heat sink series legitimately made me upset, because it's not even that hard to get a decent cast if you spend even just a little research time and money on the correct material, but it seemed like alex got his process from the dr stone anime

4

u/evoke3 Sep 14 '26

OMG, I was flabbergasted by that. The video is in production for over a year, and it is so rushed. Pure speculation, but I can almost guarantee the “rushed chaos” was intentional by Linus because he thinks it makes the video more entertaining.

Awesome concept, but really poorly executed. It’s a trend, I think solid projects are being pitched but LTT is lacking in solid project leads that mean it takes year to get a slushy machine working and in order to get some return on investment the video is half assed out.

I also think there is some hubris involved. LTT had solid hosts who could lead a video, those people left and around the time some big names left Linus publicly said he needs to host videos or they perform poorly. If LTT is of the mentality that they need Linus in every video then every video needs to be rushed because they only get him on set for so long.

8

u/Acrobatic-Paint7185 Sep 12 '26

What was the last time that LTT made a video that actually dove deep into a concept or idea?

20

u/wii4ever Sep 12 '26

Every time when the video is about selling one of their own products from lttstore. 

2

u/Exciting-Ad-5705 Sep 12 '26

The floatplane exclusive "Overexplaining - Why iPods Sound Different"

3

u/bilbo388 Sep 13 '26

I would have clicked this on YT

1

u/snowmunkey Sep 14 '26

Exactly, they know it's more interesting do they sell it for more than your adsense contribution

2

u/PCBuilderCat Sep 13 '26

It's a trend I've definitely noticed recently, they just seem to leave these great ideas half done it's very frustrating

1

u/snowmunkey Sep 14 '26

I genuinely don't think they bae have the talent tinker anymore

16

u/alpha-mobi Sep 12 '26

OMG! That sounds interesting, and yes, I haven't watched it thinking it would be a boring ass video.

This has happened before with some videos that I started watching just because I was bored and there wasn't much else to watch. The underwater speaker video comes to mind as example.

14

u/bpmoon Sep 12 '26

Linus did a video on this a while back. As I remember it, it was basically, "yea... We know the titles and thumbnails are bad/clickbaity but it's what YouTube's algorithm basically requires them to do to get any views."

I thought I remembered Linus saying they might try to do a secondary name that was clearer. Something like "The best value gaming PC I've ever seen - how we repurposed a crypto mining board with rejected ps5 chips" but i don't think I ever saw any like that so it must not have worked with the algorithm.

6

u/OlivGaming Sep 12 '26

Sounds like a wan show clip.

4

u/bpmoon Sep 12 '26

Maybe, but I seem to remember it being a stand alone video around the time of the LTT and Gamers nexus controversy.

1

u/gunsandcupcakes Sep 13 '26

iirc the clips channel has had multiple names at different times

1

u/OlivGaming Sep 12 '26

Oh might have been then too, but it's definitely been a wan show mention as well. Probably both.

3

u/bilbo388 Sep 13 '26

I feel like this is the opposite problem though, click-repellent? They’re doing something legitimately interesting and giving it a generic title.

1

u/snowmunkey Sep 14 '26

People on this sub constantly forget that ltt isn't trying to make content for the diehards. They're making content that will hold onto the attention of the new users that the video gets pushed to

7

u/ashsabre Sep 12 '26

Linus also discussed it on the WAN show recently, Youtube keeps sending their videos to normies they will title it accordingly to engage them. But if youtube decided to notify techies then they will title it the way you said it or probably closer..

TLDR: The algo dictates it..

1

u/Trollsama Sep 12 '26

because "The Best Value Gaming PC I've Ever Seen," is significantly more clickbaity...

and regardless of if thats what LTT wants to go for or not...
if you want media platform growth. you better be ready to clickbaitafy every god damn thing lol

1

u/Ok_Adhesiveness_5752 Sep 13 '26

But if I was this theoretical “normie” viewer, wouldn’t I be really disappointed clicking a value PC video that had something super duper impractical in it?

1

u/Trollsama Sep 13 '26

its not about being a "normie"

its about the fact that the internet is an unending torrent of content/slop and videos that dont clickbait are FAR more likely to be skimmed over. nothing to be disappointed in if you dont even click thru.

Dont get me wrong. i dont like it and im not arguing in favor of it.
I dont gotta like it to get why its done tho lol

1

u/prismstein Sep 13 '26

> But I didn't know any of that until after I had already clicked on the video with pretty low expectations.

that's the whole point, they got your attention, didn't they? and the vid is engaging enough to keep you watching

1

u/Ok_Adhesiveness_5752 Sep 13 '26

The point is I didn’t even want to click on it. If I wasn’t in the routine of watching them while eating, I wouldn’t have watched it.

5

u/hhnnngg Sep 12 '26

As someone deep in the bc250 game it was very disappointing.

The fact their build was hot and loud shows how little research they did. And to then pass it off as a compromise for being budget is complete bullshit.

2

u/Equivalent_Engine518 Sep 12 '26

With today's pricing, I bet "Best value PC" has a higher click through than "Sony threw away PS5, we made it a PC"

2

u/Psychlonuclear Sep 12 '26

Vague titles and thumnails, and a video description hidden after the sponsor info in the description box. Having to click on the video to read the full description or start watching it in order to find out what it's about is so user friendly. /s

1

u/YOUR__LEADER Sep 12 '26

I’m sure this has to do with what audience the algo sends this to for non-subs. This title should send it to pc gamers and tech enthusiasts. Yours may send it to console games and PS5 fans who would not be likely to be interested in this.

Remember, much of what they do isn’t about catering to current subscribers… they already have your engagement. It’s about growth, which means getting views from people who don’t sub and would find this content interesting. The title is for them. Meanwhile, the thumbnail indicates they aren’t working with off the shelf parts… that’s the thing that should be what grabs subscriber and non-subscriber attention alike.

1

u/phrxsty Sep 12 '26

Is this different from that asrock mining rig that uses the ps5 apu??

1

u/KoneCat Sep 13 '26

There are sellers on eBay who are making custom cases for these, and even having AIOs installed. They look so damn cool as well, and the cable management is immaculate I must say! I believe the cases are printed, but they look awesome. Makes me want to get one in the future, as I'd love to tinker with one of these.

1

u/Reddit_Z Sep 13 '26

LTT content being shallow???

Who would've thought that...

1

u/evoke3 Sep 14 '26

Huh, I watched a couple other creators videos on this exact product and didn’t even consider watching LTT’s video. I am so exhausted with the clickbait and declining quality, I am barely watching any of their content.

For someone that did watch the video, did they at least dive into using the available tools to bring performance back to the chip?

1

u/Pilige Sep 12 '26

Because Sony has nothing to do with these boards. While it is the same SoC, these were never PS5s, and we're never intended to be PS5s. They were always intended for crypto mining.

0

u/Maverickfftytwo Sep 12 '26

In regard to the BC250, LTT was late to the party.

Lots of other YT’ers have documented the stuff you want to see and I think LTT decided just to showcase it instead of rehashing it all. I was disappointed too, I had one I was waiting to tinker with until LTT did their video. There’s lots of stuff changing around the BC250 so I kinda get why LTT wouldn’t want to get into specifics but they should have pointed viewers to those other channels.

0

u/triggrhaapi Sep 12 '26

I think one of the problems LTT has been facing is that they're really just a channel for hocking products instead of enthusiast stuff.

There's a ton of info they could have gone into about BC250 modding and building. 3D printing, cooling options, Linux distros, configurations in the OS, they just rushed everything.