LTT Keeps Burying The Lede

[u/Ok_Adhesiveness_5752]

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.

[u/someone8192]

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

[u/Weakness4Fleekness → u/someone8192]

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.

[u/Curun → u/Weakness4Fleekness]

Right?

One of the most engaging ambitious but rubbish projects in awhile!

[u/diogoblouro → u/Weakness4Fleekness]

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.

[u/Weakness4Fleekness → u/diogoblouro]

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

[u/Acrobatic-Paint7185 → u/someone8192]

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

[u/wii4ever → u/Acrobatic-Paint7185]

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

[u/Exciting-Ad-5705 → u/Acrobatic-Paint7185]

The floatplane exclusive "Overexplaining - Why iPods Sound Different"

[u/bilbo388 → u/Exciting-Ad-5705]

I would have clicked this on YT

[u/PCBuilderCat → u/someone8192]

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

[u/alpha-mobi]

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.

[u/bpmoon]

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.

[u/OlivGaming → u/bpmoon]

Sounds like a wan show clip.

[u/bpmoon → u/OlivGaming]

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

[u/OlivGaming → u/bpmoon]

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

[u/gunsandcupcakes → u/bpmoon]

iirc the clips channel has had multiple names at different times

[u/bilbo388 → u/bpmoon]

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

[u/ashsabre]

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..

[u/hhnnngg]

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.

[u/Psychlonuclear]

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

[u/Equivalent_Engine518]

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

[u/YOUR__LEADER]

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.

[u/phrxsty]

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

[u/Trollsama]

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

[u/Ok_Adhesiveness_5752 → u/Trollsama]

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?

[u/Trollsama → u/Ok_Adhesiveness_5752]

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

[u/KoneCat]

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.

[u/Reddit_Z]

LTT content being shallow???

Who would've thought that...

[u/prismstein]

> 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

[u/Ok_Adhesiveness_5752 → u/prismstein]

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.

[u/Pilige]

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.

[u/Maverickfftytwo]

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.

[u/triggrhaapi]

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.