Great summary! Here is the other side of the debate:
The backpack is overengineered and spares no expense in materials and durability, making it expensive. It is not overpriced. It may be unreasonably costly and not worth the purchase. The reason being it costs a lot to manufacture, not because it’s overpriced.
Linus was stupid in his “no warranty needed” claim, as most people won’t (and shouldn’t) take his word for it. Nevertheless, it is true his store always replaced items without issue and continues to do so, warranty or not. The customer experience is generally much better than the average store, where you may have to fight for your warranty claim only for it to be refused anyway. This is what he meant. If stores are not honoring warranties, and his store is accepting returns without a warranty anyway, then what’s the piece of paper worth anyway? But people like the piece of mind it provides, they learned the lesson and are providing it now. Of course the warranty never mattered either way.
I did buy the backpack. Months later I received a replacement set of zippers. There is nothing wrong with the original zippers, they just felt these ones are better and people who bought the backpack before the change should get them too. This has never happened to me with another purchase in my life, where the store decided to upgrade it for free and ship it to another continent for free, without me asking.
Months later they discovered the material used for the backpack floor isn’t what they wanted. So they offered me (and all purchasers) a full refund and additional store credit. Nobody noticed the issue, nobody asked for refunds. They discovered it and offered refunds proactively, even though it’s a non-issue. Again never happen in my life with another purchase.
Shitty for the employee to shit on GN. Commendable for Linus to stand by his employee publicly instead of blaming him.
You are correct they had lot of quality issues. It is also worth mentioning their overhaul that happened after that, improved processed, slowed down upload cadence, and the formation of volunteer “beta tester” viewers who watch videos pre-release to find errors not found internally. Good for them to try to improve.
Auctioning off the prototype cooler was quite egregious! As usual Linus took the heat on himself and never named the responsible employee who misallocated the cooler in their inventory.
A third party investigation found the sexual harassment allegations unfounded. Due to the nature of this we might never know the details though.
Linus invited Naomi to meet him in the meeting rooms of his hotel’s lobby, which exist specifically for business meetings. She later untruthfully misrepresented it as an invite to his hotel room.
In general, the transparency at which their business operates makes it very easy to point out flaws. I think it’s better than the opaque businesses where this can’t happen.
I agree with these of your points I didn’t address.
Hope this provides both sides for readers, and thanks again.
I wish this was a top level comment. People just want to hate on LTT. Is it because they are successful? People misunderstand his arguments about warranty. I.e. a warranty means nothing if the company won’t uphold it.
Have you even looked at the computer electronics business? Or lived a few decades? Otherwise how can you have no experience of a company deciding your use of a product doesn’t meet THEIR expectations and so they invalidate your warranty claim? Heck, look at what Intel is doing right now with its 13 and 14 series chips.
Legality is nothing without enforcement, and there’s like none of that for warranties in the US, and even less for global companies with overseas HQs.
Technically not legal, but depending on the wording, there’s a ton of gray area in what’s considered warranty-covered damage and what’s not warranty-covered damage. Companies absolutely take advantage of the gray area, even lying in some instances because they know that their users would rarely have the know-how to call them out on it and demand rightful warranty coverage. LTT’s argument is that if there is such large legal gray area on the warranty, it is meaningless to provide one to begin with
Didnt they find out about the backpack floor BECAUSE one of the customers wore through the floor? I believe i remember linus telling them that “wasnt possible” or something to that effect before recieving the backpack in question and finding out the manufacturer removed the second layer they had requested because they thought it was a mistake
I hope I recall correctly: I was watching an episode of wan-show where they looked into a backpack returned from a miner after heavy wear, but little real damage. Live on the show they wanted to showcase the double bottom, so they cut into it (can’t recall if this was in the miners backpack or another one) and were surprized to realize there wasn’t a double bottom. Linus quickly assured, still live, that this would be handled for all customers.
LMG did blame the manifactures of the backpack for removing a layer in a late stage design adjustment, but LMG have also alledegly taken a huge cost on assuring customers that they can receive a new backpack for free if the bottom fails for any reason.
My memoery of this might be fuzzy, and the story I have heard comes fully from LMGs perspective, so take everything with a grain of salt.
Great summary! Here is the other side of the debate:
The backpack is overengineered and spares no expense in materials and durability, making it expensive. It is not overpriced. It may be unreasonably costly and not worth the purchase. The reason being it costs a lot to manufacture, not because it’s overpriced.
Linus was stupid in his “no warranty needed” claim, as most people won’t (and shouldn’t) take his word for it. Nevertheless, it is true his store always replaced items without issue and continues to do so, warranty or not. The customer experience is generally much better than the average store, where you may have to fight for your warranty claim only for it to be refused anyway. This is what he meant. If stores are not honoring warranties, and his store is accepting returns without a warranty anyway, then what’s the piece of paper worth anyway? But people like the piece of mind it provides, they learned the lesson and are providing it now. Of course the warranty never mattered either way.
I did buy the backpack. Months later I received a replacement set of zippers. There is nothing wrong with the original zippers, they just felt these ones are better and people who bought the backpack before the change should get them too. This has never happened to me with another purchase in my life, where the store decided to upgrade it for free and ship it to another continent for free, without me asking.
Months later they discovered the material used for the backpack floor isn’t what they wanted. So they offered me (and all purchasers) a full refund and additional store credit. Nobody noticed the issue, nobody asked for refunds. They discovered it and offered refunds proactively, even though it’s a non-issue. Again never happen in my life with another purchase.
Shitty for the employee to shit on GN. Commendable for Linus to stand by his employee publicly instead of blaming him.
You are correct they had lot of quality issues. It is also worth mentioning their overhaul that happened after that, improved processed, slowed down upload cadence, and the formation of volunteer “beta tester” viewers who watch videos pre-release to find errors not found internally. Good for them to try to improve.
Auctioning off the prototype cooler was quite egregious! As usual Linus took the heat on himself and never named the responsible employee who misallocated the cooler in their inventory.
A third party investigation found the sexual harassment allegations unfounded. Due to the nature of this we might never know the details though.
Linus invited Naomi to meet him in the meeting rooms of his hotel’s lobby, which exist specifically for business meetings. She later untruthfully misrepresented it as an invite to his hotel room.
In general, the transparency at which their business operates makes it very easy to point out flaws. I think it’s better than the opaque businesses where this can’t happen.
I agree with these of your points I didn’t address.
Hope this provides both sides for readers, and thanks again.
I wish this was a top level comment. People just want to hate on LTT. Is it because they are successful? People misunderstand his arguments about warranty. I.e. a warranty means nothing if the company won’t uphold it.
Is that even legal? If you provide a warranty, you have to uphold it. Since LTT is in the USA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson–Moss_Warranty_Act.
LTT is in Canada.
TIL
Have you even looked at the computer electronics business? Or lived a few decades? Otherwise how can you have no experience of a company deciding your use of a product doesn’t meet THEIR expectations and so they invalidate your warranty claim? Heck, look at what Intel is doing right now with its 13 and 14 series chips.
Legality is nothing without enforcement, and there’s like none of that for warranties in the US, and even less for global companies with overseas HQs.
Technically not legal, but depending on the wording, there’s a ton of gray area in what’s considered warranty-covered damage and what’s not warranty-covered damage. Companies absolutely take advantage of the gray area, even lying in some instances because they know that their users would rarely have the know-how to call them out on it and demand rightful warranty coverage. LTT’s argument is that if there is such large legal gray area on the warranty, it is meaningless to provide one to begin with
Didnt they find out about the backpack floor BECAUSE one of the customers wore through the floor? I believe i remember linus telling them that “wasnt possible” or something to that effect before recieving the backpack in question and finding out the manufacturer removed the second layer they had requested because they thought it was a mistake
I hope I recall correctly: I was watching an episode of wan-show where they looked into a backpack returned from a miner after heavy wear, but little real damage. Live on the show they wanted to showcase the double bottom, so they cut into it (can’t recall if this was in the miners backpack or another one) and were surprized to realize there wasn’t a double bottom. Linus quickly assured, still live, that this would be handled for all customers.
LMG did blame the manifactures of the backpack for removing a layer in a late stage design adjustment, but LMG have also alledegly taken a huge cost on assuring customers that they can receive a new backpack for free if the bottom fails for any reason.
My memoery of this might be fuzzy, and the story I have heard comes fully from LMGs perspective, so take everything with a grain of salt.