My take on this is no they don’t. As long as they are truthful they only report on the quality of the product and prevent many people of spending a lot of money from losing it by buying something that doesn’t work.
If your product is shit your company does not deserve to be shielded from the backlash, this is the core of (classic) capitalism after all.
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who gives a fuck about companies?
Maybe the people who lose their job when they go under. That being said we shouldn’t prop up a bad business just because people might lose their livelihood
People whose entire personality is what stocks they follow.
To the moon, bro!
I work for one and hope it goes well enougs so I can get my money for the work I’m doing.
People with jobs.
People with jobs.
I have one, still don’t care about the company or bad reviews about it when they deserve it.
I also care that whatever company I work for moves to take corrective action as well. This isn’t at all difficult to think through.
Ok? “Caring about companies” only means “caring about your job and income and benefits” it doesn’t mean “I wonder if the CEO is happy”
how is that then caring about the company? This is clearly caring about yourself…
I care that my company continues to exist and does not experience financial hardship that will impact my income.
How is this hard for people?
Because it’s the equivalent of saying society should not stop using coal or fossil fuels or those people who pump your gas for you because “what about the employees???”. No, the world needs to move on.
If your company produces shitty products that people don’t want, then they shouldn’t exist and you should find a different job rather investing your livelihood in such a bad idea.
This is the equivalent of telling people to “just move” of their home town sucks
Consideration is required; it’s much easier to be a knee-jerk contrarian one supposes.
Companies also include small genuinely good startups and a dishonest negative review could ruin them.
Yes. Everyone agrees.
There’s a different way to look at companies. They’re not just profit-making entities. They are ways of organizing people to accomplish things nobody could do on their own. The profit is just there to keep the lights on and pay everyone a living wage.
Our current system doesn’t encourage that approach, but that’s just a problem with the current system.
Entities like LTT have a very large audience and the opinion they put forward tends to influence a large crowd. Dishonest reviews about an emerging startup could ruin their customer basis.
Well, this is MKBHD who has an even larger audience
Well, this is MKBHD who has an even larger audience
And is known primarily as a reviewer.
LTT do some reviews, but that’s not their primary focus.
Or, to use your example, reviews that don’t understand the product or play it for laughs. 😅
The reviewer should be truthful and fair. If that means trashing a shitty product then that’s how it should be. Not calling out shitty products hurts the consumer and means the reviewer is doing a bad job.
He didn’t even trash the product — he just accurately described it.
For anyone wondering, this is a response to a review Marques posted about Humane’s AI pin, which he called the worst product he’s ever reviewed. A member of the company complained he was going to kill their business:
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/marques-brownlees-humane-ai-pin-review
Oh it was a member of the company? That’s embarrassing.
Its a joke to think a single reviewer could hold that much power. Fact is, multiple reviewers are in agreement that it’s shit.
Yeah, especially when it’s a total nothing product ‘we removed the useful bits of a phone and charge a big subscription for the free tool most people disable or ignore’
I feel like no one even needed a review to know this is trash
If that thing was a lightweight, cheap companion to a cellphone with a decent camera I could maybe consider buying it, because I do like some concepts like dealing with single tasks like adding an item to a todo list, playing a song, checking out a qr code or grabbing a video while I’m riding.
The way it is now it’s a grandiose piece of crap, too expensive for its own good.
An honest review isn’t what’s going to kill their business. Even a bad product in and of itself isn’t necessarily what could cause the death of their business — it’s their not adequately tempering consumer expectations. From the sounds of it, they’ve oversold what the product can actually do, and are charging a price based on this fantasy.
If you’re honest in your marketing as to what your product can actually do, and charge a corresponding price then consumers and reviewers may be more forgiving. Where companies like this one which are doing fairly experimental stuff fail is when they over-promise and under-deliver. And reviewers will always take them to task when they do that.
Lmfao I had a feeling it was about humane. Marques’ criticisms were valid af, as usual.
Don’t think he’s a member of the company though.
I looked up what it would cost for me to buy one of these and run it daily.
After conversions and shipping, it would be $1100 to get one in my hands. It would be $50-60/month (Pin sub + data phone plan) to make it functional. And when the company inevitably folds in 1 to 2 years (or any of the companies they use for processing), the entire thing will turn into e-waste. It has literally zero on-device processing or functionality nor can it piggyback off your phone. It will turn into a paperweight.
This thing is a scam.
Reviewer opinions on both Humane and Fisker are pretty consistently negative so this isn’t some mean YouTuber with an axe to grind situation.
The products are bad and people shouldn’t waste their hard earned money and time on them. Venture Capital firms may lose money, but that comes with the territory. Not every venture is a win.
Absolutely. LinusTechTips had to issue a formal apology for dumb stuff someone had said about another reviewer, but in the unveiling of all their shit, it was revealed that they had mis-reviewed a gaming mouse.
The mouse was in prototype stages, and the LTT member that reviewed it did not take the plastic off the gliders and said that the mouse was horrible and dragged a lot. The company then floundered and had to sell the prototype and rights at auction at the next CES.
The worst part is that they assumed that a competent reviewer had the fucking common-ass sense to remove the plastic that… you know… comes on almost every gaming mouse, so they didn’t even dispute the issue.
Ah LTT, the “go fast and break things” of the tech review world.
He makes a pretty good point near the end of the video where he claims that reviews are only a catalyst, and only speed up whatever trajectory the company is already on. Assuming that the reviews are honest and objective I agree with this point 100%.
Ultimately the quality of the product or service on offer steer the ship, the reviews are just the wind.
As long as they are truthful they only report on the quality of the product and prevent many people of spending a lot of money from losing it by buying something that doesn’t work.
Well, yeah sure. The problem is whether or not that’s actually what’s happening in any given circumstance. Most reviewers I’ve seen are more than happy to include personal opinion, and some will exagerrate points for the sake of getting views.
Things get even more fraught when the reviewer is a bigger company than the company whose product is being reviewed. For example the debacle with Linus Tech Tips and Billet labs that they were dragged for. That’s the kind of coverage that absolutely can sink a company that seemingly only ever did exactly what they said they would.
Reviews are good if they present the important facts and generally act with integrity, but sometimes that’s a really big ‘if’.
“Git gud companies” -MKBHD
Reviewers aren’t (or really shouldn’t be) beholden to companies, the whole point of a review is to give an opinion on a product, and the less input into that the company has the happier I will be. At the same time, some reviewers do hold a lot of sway, and can strongly influence people’s opinions with their reviews, so there might be an argument that a negative review can impact sales. However, so what? If the reviewer is bringing up their concerns or issues with a product, that is the whole point of what they do, and their viewers will want to hear about those things (working on the assumption that people will tend to watch reviewers they think align with their own views), and would be pretty upset if they weren’t warned about the downsides prior to purchasing.
Good. Make better products and support them after you made them.
If your company sounds scammy and you say it can do things it can’t, I hope your company burns before you burn customers who believed your lies
I’m legitimately shocked there are people defending the garbage Humane AI Pin, which leads me to think a lot of the criticism levied at MKBHD is made up by a PR firm working for the company. I already hated the god damn thing because it gave you hallucinations on demand. But watching his review and The Verge’s review, its an overpriced gimmick that has a camera on all the time, and does nothing a smartphone can’t already do. They didn’t ask for bad reviews, they made a godawful MV–sorry, shitty product. Now they’re gonna reap the whirlwind.
A smartphone is just better in every way imaginable. I also don’t have my phone hallucinating all the time either, so I have that going for me.
I’m also gonna say the obvious quiet part out loud: He’s black and they’re targeting him first. Not The Verge, not Engadget, him.
I’d think a bigger difference is he’s a single YouTuber, the Verge and Engadget are actual companies with $ and man power.
No, he’s mentioned he has a team. He may be the final say on a product, but there’s people under him shaping what he gets.
I respect MKB for the hustle and his success, but he’s not a one man band.
They seem to think he is single at least…
What are we supposed to do? Give bad products good reviews so the poor little million dollar startup doesn’t get its feelings hurt?
If we were talking about dishonest, malicious reviews, I’d understand.
That’s not the case here though, not only is Marques’ review honest, multiple reviewers reached the same conclusion as him.Maybe try making a good product next time.
Is this about the Humane thing?
In his video, he mentions the Humane review - but also the Fisker car review which was equally scathing.
Just watched the whole video (and the car one afterwards). I think if MKBHD is being disingenuous, as one of the most influential reviewers, he would’ve been the first to be called out (based on the facts he’d got wrong in the video instead of conspiracies.) that didn’t happen so I’d say it’s safe to assume the problem stems from the product itself, at least in these cases. Anyway, great watch.
Bad products lead to bad reviews, bad word of mouth, and bad reputation… which can - and does - kill companies.
But the first thing has to be true for the others to follow.
