🖕 Fuck PayPal
And fuck Linus Tech Tips for intentionally keeping quiet about this after they found out.
I said it in another post: if you see a bunch of influencers all suddenly peddling the same stuff, stay away. All of them can be bought.
Or, just don’t trust ads period
Do your own research
Okay, all of these customer reviews loved this product!
Weird how formulaic they sounded though.
Didn’t say anything about site reviews either :p
But ya finding good sources can be hard
Or just don’t buy shit you don’t need.
Technically you don’t need housing or personal transportation so
Even nomadic culture have housing they carry with them.
(You don’t buy Honey.)
Do your own research is the famous last coherent phrase of the QAnon crowd. Idk what the answer is but that phrase will forever make me uneasy.
How long are we going to let the far right keep stealing our words? It’s a proud respectable cryptocurrency term.
Grifters all the way down then
It’s also something leftists famously tell each other ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Especially anything from Linus, they’re a very scummy group.
Especially anything from NullDrive, they’re a very scummy group.
But I really enjoy watching Techlinked :(
Am I the only one who, upon seeing his videos for the first time, immediately thought he was an annoying little pinhead?
Like, I’ve watched his channel(s) surge in popularity over the years, and this entire time I’ve just been wondering why, and the issues that have come out about his little empire since have only confirmed my initial prejudice.
I’m with you. I heard of him on Reddit forever ago and couldn’t get through a single video.
They event have the stupid thumbnail stereotype
Soviet Womble expressed the feeling I have against channels like that very nicely: 7:56, in case link with timer doesn’t work
Their entire video is an ad filled experience of shilling not only their sponsors but themselves. Incredibly obnoxious and cramming in every YouTube stereotype from begging for likes and subs to clickbait titles and then insisting they have to do it so they can have their cake and eat it makes them even more obnoxious than if they just did it without wanting to be forgiven for it.
It’s getting worse, I can’t remember who but I was watching a video just the other day and their ad segment was the fucking ltt ratchet driver. You know, the one they supposedly made because they were tired of the market and the low quality rip-offs all the companies were just trying to make profit off of (it’s a shitty plastic screwdriver for 70$, link to pic and it’s being sold at fucking walmart now). They sold it as such a heart string story in the beginning, it’s just another mini-wannabe corporation.
I don’t particularly feel bad at this point for their continued reputation downfall and the people responsible. Everyone has their own personal story of their favorite company which has turned to complete shit (Blizzard is one of mine). They didn’t come out strong but doubled down corporate style when everything started. That’s fine, but anyone staying and putting up with the stressful workplace knows what they’ve gotten themselves into.
Oh please attack them on actual grounds rather than a made-up nonsense. The screwdriver is actually decent product if you care about that sort of thing. No one’s getting scammed there, It’s an actual product that’s of relatively good quality.
If you don’t care about screwdrivers then you’re probably not interested in the product anyway and if you are a frequent screwdriver user you probably understand why it’s a good product.
Definitely could describe me as a frequent screwdriver user. Currently restoring 2 John Oster vintage drill drivers, tradesmen, electronic repair tinkerer (unfortunately for everyone else in my life as well, it’s always overwhelming), just basically always have a screwdriver in my hand every day.
I think if I were to reevaluate my statement, I would put it as:
“It’s a shitty-looking-plastic Screwdriver, for 70$”
You can claim the inner mechanisms and their elevated teeth count “makes it a vastly superior product”, but as someone who owns several ratcheting screwdrivers, I wouldn’t recommend this out of the blue for someone. If someone has “particular gripes, all of which are solved with this product”, then it might be a good match for you.
If you want to support them, the 70$ isn’t a bad price ticket for what you get. It’s like a donation with a really cool grab bag that you actually want. If you’re telling someone who doesn’t have a ratcheting screwdriver to first pay 70$ on this? You’re just shilling for the company.
I can’t believe I have to say this near the year 2025 of our lord and saviour president musk, but don’t buy your fucking tools from a tech tip influencer. These are a MegaPro patent from an actual tool company. They are lower in price, rubber grips, and actually look better. If you don’t care about the look, spend an extra 10$ and get the Snapon with a LIFETIME WARRANTY. It’s the same one Linus used before he created this gimmick, he didn’t replace it because it had “sentimental value” apparently.
I could go on and on, but obviously anyone that’s actually looked into it would know that this isn’t such a grand prize as those who want to push LTT merch make it out to be.
edit: meant to say shitty looking plastic, not shitty plastic.
That’s actually a very nice screwdriver. Nice ratchet screw drivers do cost that much. I have one, but given where LTT is these days as a company, I don’t recommend buying it.
I would be very happy if creators were able to fund their operations off their own merch rather than outside advertising. That seems to be what Gamers Nexus does, or at least heading that way. What LTT does, though, is use it as an additional revenue source on top of their other advertising sources. Doing it right means resisting the urge to consume more and more, and LTT is not capable of that.
It’s the corporate doubling-down that you have to worry and look out for. As you say it’s a revenue source for them. In fact, they spent over 100k (as stated by them in their own shows) for “Marketing” to get this screwdriver out there, for something that’s a revenue source for them.
It has to be such a lucrative deal for them that they are pulling resources from other revenue to prop this up. Prepare for the slow enshittification of his tools. They order them from a manufacturer, parts will become cheaper, bulks will slowly have less quality control, and they’ll “move on” to later versions that pocket them more cash. They really don’t have to worry about their reputation as a “Tool manufacturer”, they’ll just pass the blame off onto another party while sweeping things under the rug and continuing on whistling like nothing happened.
I might need a !remind me on here in 10 years.
I have a few gripes with LTT but the screwdriver is legit good. A bit overpriced because of the branding sure but definitely not a throwaway product
I used to think the importance of leadership at the top of a company to be overblown since they succeed based on the work of all of the employees, but it is pretty amazing how fast a change to shitty leadership can run a successful company into the ground.
I got that creepy feeling from him the first time I saw a video of him. Every photo of him I saw set off alarms. I’ve also never understood why anyone even likes the guy.
This was years before all the issues came to light.
Because of his name, I thought he was a pro-Linux channel. I was swiftly disappointed.
I mean the easiest name so you can’t really go for him for that.
I’m not exactly sure what you’re saying here, so I apologize if I’m misinterpreting, but - while I have many potential complaints about Linus - I don’t blame him for his name resembling the word “Linux.”
No, he’s pro blanket!
I have nothing clever to say here, so normally I’d let my upvote express my feelings, but that feels inadequate in this case. I just wanted to use my words to let you know that this comment amused me a great deal and to thank you.
He once bricked his OS during a “run Linux for a week” challenge. He tried to do
apt install steamor something and ignored a bunch of warnings. Of course he then bashed Linux because he didn’t pay attentionYeah, I didn’t see that video, but I recall reading about it. Apparently the package manager warned him that something would be potentially destructive and he ignored the warning, then blamed Linux for it when it was destructive.
Edit: that wall of text really got away from me sorry. Tried so hard to not be misunderstood 😅
I really don’t wanna defend Linus here buuuut…
I can see someone who’s switching over from Windows making the same mistake, especially if they’re good with Windows but new to Linux. You get so conditioned constantly telling Windows to take off the fucking training wheels and ignoring all its bullshit warnings that I can see you making the same assumptions on your first(ish) time using Linux. Plus you don’t expect something as benign as installing Steam to destroy your desktop manager.
His biggest criticism if I remember correctly was also that widespread adoption won’t be feasible until <whatever distro> is idiot proof and I agree. Ease of use is there these days but the things that make Linux so powerful can also be the things your average Windows user (deletes desktop shortcuts by accident and panics thinking they uninstalled their apps level of technical) can use to break their install, especially if they blindly follow one of the many (sometimes out of date) tutorials out there that tell you to run some random commands in the terminal.
With that said, it’s still his mistake. He should’ve read the damn instructions, and owned up to it more. He’s technical enough to know you can’t go in assuming you know how to use something you’re new to.
Obligatory I fucking love Linux and hope it becomes the default someday not just because fuck Windows and fuck Microsoft, but because it’s genuinely amazing in its own right.
No worries about the WoT, I’ve often been there myself.
Thank you for the clarification. As I said, I didn’t see and don’t plan to watch the video, so I didn’t know the details. I don’t know what it would take for Linux to be widely adopted or whether it could be considered “ready” but I wish it would.
What annoys me the most is since his last drama, Linus HAS to be the face in every video now! Wtf it used to be a bunch of them took turns making videos, and it was fun seeing everyone work on different things. He has to be front and get all the attention, it just feels weird now.
Side effect of him stepping away from the CEO role, I guess.
Pretty sure it has nothing to do with him needing attention and everything to do with thumbnails of him getting more clicks. It’s the only thing the company cares about.
They whore for corpos, that’s who pays them
Some do good work but got to assume they are an enemy until proven otherwise.
I have a built-in spidey sense that hates any product that gets peddled simultaneously by a bunch of YouTubers.
See also: RayCons headphones, which appear to be unilaterally bullshit but were on absolutely every video for a couple of months, touted as being the very best.
I never trusted Honey to begin with but this goes far deeper than I ever expected. I always wondered “yeah, but where do they get their money?” I always figured it was just a way to take people’s data and sell it to data brokers (which they probably also do, let’s be honest) but this is just blatant fraud. Stealing affiliate money from links and having companies pay them to purposefully give out worse coupon codes is just devious through and through. It’s basically free money and everybody else, whether influencer or consumer, get fucked over in the process.
Yeah I always wondered what the catch was? The CEO was always posting on Reddit trying to defend honey and how cool they were.
Either way, I never trust any shopping deal plugins. The whole idea of them is sketchy.
I use this extension to get a general idea of whether a product usually goes for cheaper and whether or not to wait. Really conveniently on the Amazon page directly.
Also pcpartpicker to track pc parts. Isthereanydeals for game prices.
Only shopping plugin I use is the one that comes with Edge. Surprisingly good to track price history and find other sites selling the product. I considered some Chrome plugin that displays an Amazon product’s country of origin to avoid Chinesium but apparently it didn’t work well or something like that from reading the reviews. Had some attached rewards function for shopping with it, ick.
There’s a good one for Amazon called Keepa that shows you the price history of the item. Helps a ton keeping prices in check during sales like Prime Day to see how much you are actually saving, if anything.
Also nice to see how much you could potentially save if you just wait for the next sale or if there was already a price decrease. Often times it looks like I’m good buying without waiting for any sale as the sales only knocked off a few dollars, at most.
Triple Camel does this too
Nice! Thanks for the recommendation, I love having alternatives in case anything unexpectedly goes down.
Thank you for the recommendation, looks neat. Tracking prices of different conditions is a nice touch. I’ll have to scrutinize it further when I make my next online purchases and chuck it into Edge as I made that my dedicated shopping browser.
It’s funny how Edge got lambasted for it when they introduced that feature, but it’s legitimately super helpful and non-invasive.
I had no idea it was, I don’t keep up with browser news. I just wish they didn’t migrate to Chromium. It became my main browser for a brief period before that.
I just used it randomly when I was working and doing some shopping for a computer in my downtime and decided to try out the feature. That and the AI are super good when combo’ed to shop smart. Managed to save $800 off a quality laptop.
Same. I never downloaded it or anything like it but I didn’t realize they were playing both sides. It’s fucked.
I always assumed it was a combination of your guess and companies giving Honey special coupon codes so consumers are more eager to spend.
“Hey Honey, we’ll give you 1% commission if you just host this HONEY5 coupon for 5% off.”
That was my impression when I used it once. Wasn’t worth having an extension just for a slight discount. Love when a company doesn’t fulfill the service they advertise.
But that would be an ethical business model, we can’t have that, this is PayPal and this is the internet. There’s no place for ethics in that combination.
everybody else, whether influencer or consumer, get fucked over in the process.
Enshittification correctly defined.
The product is spyware by design. It’s a honey pot for people trying to save a few bucks, while exposing their entire browsing behavior. They even called it honey…
This isn’t anything new. Brave browser does this, ad hijacking is a common thing. Many companies have been doing this for years, why is it only coming up now?
The best time to burn down a poisonous tree was 20 years ago etc etc
If you’re sitting at a poker table and you can’t tell who the sucker is, it’s you.
Alternately, if you look at an online service and can’t tell what the product is, It’s you.
And even if you can tell what the product is, it‘s still often you. “Premium” subscriptions for example might hide (some) ads, but services still collect as much data about you. Even grocery stores where the offer seems obvious are trying to bait you into installing their apps to collect data on top of charging you for every item. And sure it’s not relevant in this case, but it’s something we should never forget.
By that logic, linux users are the product.
I mean, yes?
The key difference is linux wants you to help make it better. Something like Honey steals your data, and steals money from others, and then wants you to make it better.
Yeah, I feel like that’s usually a very accurate saying, but it doesn’t really work with a lot of open source projects.
I hate that you’re getting downvoted by so many people who don’t realize you’re pointing out an exception to the rule, and instead think you have some fundamental misunderstanding about how Linux works.
They are getting downvoted for misconstruing something that is clearly a rule about profit making services and applying it to crowd sourced non-profit open source projects.
Truly open source projects don’t have suckers.
misconstruing something that is clearly a rule about profit making services
To be honest I don’t think that’s clear at all, it feels like it’s more a rule about being skeptical of free stuff online. And many for profit companies have open source projects that can be used safely even though the source is a for-profit.
It’s difficult for others to take advantage of you when you can learn what the software actually does and have it modified to work another way.
Linux (for the most part) is open source but I’d argue the inclusion of any proprietary software/firmware/drivers means it ultimately isn’t.
Except Linux has proper legal underpinnings that anyone with a few brain cells can verify.
You can compile your own code too
Hence why people always say do your diligence
No? The OS is the product.
I think the issue was with the original commenter’s phrasing. Facebook looks like a product. But the commenter meant “How the product is being funded”.
Of course, it gets hard when there’s multiple sources of revenue. You used to be able to spot ads and come to the conclusion that that was everything. Now an ad is just the tip of the iceberg.
Linux is neither an online service, nor a business at all.
I am so disconnected from this influencer thing that I first heard about Honey when news were pushing that it was a scam. I’m just living under a rock and sometimes that saves my butt, I guess.
They sponsored a podcast that I listen to, and that’s how I heard about it. I don’t buy stuff online often enough for it to be useful, though, and I’m wary about installing stuff like that anyway.
I guess that podcast has egg on their faces now.
LTT… toilet flushing! I had no expectations of paypal. To my shame I used them in the past,but deleted my account after reading how scummy they are. fuck paypal and anything affiliated with them.
Mid this year they also started sharing transaction data without consent…
Delete that account
I deleted my PayPal account a couple of months ago already. Problem solved.
Linus Tech Tips really is scum. Yet more proof of that.
It was a matter of time until the public found out about this. They couldn’t think in the long term, by not accepting a bit of backlash, exposing the scam they unknowingly participated in they only opened themselves up for more later.
They are not only evil, they are stupid too, which is worse.
Same person that said ad blocking was the same as piracy.
It is. Taking from a service without paying for it, and actively avoiding the service making money via advertising is basically the same as watching a film without paying for it.
Both ways, you consumed a service and the people providing it got nothing, but it cost them something to create and provide it.
It…is? You’re copying digital content without paying for it. I use uBlock but I don’t pretend to have the moral high ground.
It’s… not? It’s protection against malware and profiling by shady companies.
It can be both things at the same time.
Have you ever heard his full stance on the matter? Because he clearly stated that this is not a judgment against using it. Heck, he’s been open about having sailed the high seas himself and still doing so for media he physically owns.
It’s just that gaining access to media while circumventing the payment (ads in this case) is basically piracy. Which is fair.
Signed, A uBlock User
If I hacked a server to get content then I would be circumventing payment at it shouldn’t be up to me how it responds to requests, I don’t own it. Google trying to enforce playing adverts via software running on my property is an unjust overreach. The user choosing what displays on their own monitor is not “circumvention”, it’s claiming ownership over your computing. Google could choose to verify on their servers if I’ve paid (in normal currency) but instead their servers act like adverts are an optional donation.
I trust Linus is being sincere when he says “it’s not a judgement” but blocking ads is being compared to a criminal doing copyright infringement (illegal). The word used is one originally meaning for a person murdering others on boats (immoral), and it’s used because it’s pejorative. It’s unavoidably judgemental.
How much you want to bet he uses Ad block himself but it’s suddenly different when YOU do it on HIS content?
OP isn’t exactly giving you the full story there. I know for a fact I’ve seen a video on this. I remember thinking at the time “well duh”.
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I respect coffee but he said nice things about MrBeast who is known to hire pedophiles and sexual pests
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I thought it was just collecting and selling user data but while I’d bet it’s still happening - wow, this is way craftier.
Everybody: Fuck Peter Thiel, fuck Elon Musk, fuck Honey, Fuck PayPal
Everybody: unflinchingly using PayPal
Deleted my ebay account but very rarely will buy on the site. I’ve yet to find a UK alternative.
I dunno, I stopped a while back, it wasn’t hard really. I’ve also heard that while they are usually fine with regular sums of money they are not to be trusted with large sums. Just word of mouth an I’ve got no proof but it put me off.
There are some examples of buyers exploiting the returns policy for expensive items. The buyer initiates a return of item but never sends it, gets item and refund.
I guess most people don’t have much knowledge about affiliate link URLs and how easily they can be rewritten to shift where the commission goes. I implemented SkimLinks on a hunch of websites so I’ve seen it before. Forum owners used to get upset about anyone posting product links in their comments because they night include an affiliate code. SkimLinks adds JavaScript to every page that rewrites those codes to the forum owner’s personal account. It will even insert an affiliate code into basic Amazon links that don’t have one. Once this came out, forums went a lot easier on Amazon links.
After seeing all this, the second I spot a browser extension that wants to get between me and Amazon, I immediately assume they will rewrite all the links for their own benefit. Otherwise what’s in it for them? This news isn’t much of a surprise.
The biggest issue that this video brings up is that businesses can filter out certain coupon codes if the discount is too high
I used honey for a while and it was working great for me with “exclusive” coupons and Cashback and then one time I bough a cellphone that was supposed to have $250 cashback. I did all the necessary steps, read the t&c, took screenshots of the offer and made the purchase. I never got the transaction to appear on their website. Sending emails it trying to contact them was futile (I even made an automatic script to send an email everyday to follow up). Fuck PayPal
Small claims
