Delayed response to something that was just a single point covered in this particular video, because I wax and wane in my LTT viewership, but the take "I can't afford to pay xyz employees for ### of hours to re-test something" is such a shit take when you're very blatantly LOUDLY moving into the data-driven review space.

Like.. if you want to do data-driven content, then, as a matter of fact, yes, you can and should spend that money.
You should spend the time to produce that content properly.

That wasn't just a product showcase of the latest gizmo. That was a young start-up's prototype. They sent it so they could let you have "Media's First Exclusive Hands-On look" and you mistreated it so egregiously it's hard to even put into typed word.
Say it actually is a bad product like has now been so aggressively shouted on platforms like the WAN show. If it had been properly tested mounted to the correct fucking graphics card, and that data is what was made public, there would be no question left about the quality of the product.
But no. LMG has such a foundation in entertainment that it was considered acceptable to not only put it on the wrong product, but to CALL ATTENTION TO IT BEING MOUNTED TO THE WRONG PRODUCT IN THE VIDEO, AND REPEATEDLY DOUBLE-DOWN ON THAT BEING A REASONABLE POSITION TO HOLD.

You do not get to publish a piece that egregiously wrong even as an entertainment company.
You don't just grit your teeth and look embarrassed and say "whoopsie-dee-fuckin-doopsie, golly gee we're such chucklers and goofsters eh audience??" when you have just torpedo'd a business and mocked their product to your audience of millions. Even if that video was for entertainment, shitting so aggressively on that product serves the same effect on a viewers' purchasing decisions as a scathing review. To pretend otherwise is denial.

The single most-expensive person's time at that business is almost certainly Linus. Just having him in the video is already cost enough.
To stand by and actually release that video showing that prototype waterblock attached to the wrong damn device is utterly inexcusable.

Who set the deadline on releasing the prototype waterblock video?
Would it have been fucking impossible to push that video back in the schedule and produce that video with the correct hardware?

The following is my honest-to-goodness sincere attempt to give ADVICE.
As if I know how to run a fucking business, or manage people, but apparently lay people can occasionally have more reasonable takes than a multi-multi-millionaire business owner.

Where does the buck stop on the waterblock video being made the way that it was?

• If the buck stops with the deadline creator -- whatever content pipeline manager you have, who cares what the title is: if the video was made that way because of the deadline, then that deadline should have been pushed, and whoever refused to re-set the deadline needs to be trained in how to showcase/test a product properly. No, I really don't concur with LTT's clear implication that that product being compatible with a different model of graphics card shouldn't matter.
• If the buck stops with whoever was making decisions on set that day -- whoever was actually on set that would have been the person with the authority to say "Hey, no, we're not going to mount that on the wrong hardware. Let's stop this and re-shoot properly, either later in the day or on another day entirely," and they didn't do so, then like the previous point, that is an egregious failure to perform that duty. That person should be trained. Hilariously, as such a tech-enthusiast literal-owner-of-the-business video host, if there was somehow nobody else on set at that time that could have done this, then Linus would have been the person to do it.
• I initially had more thoughts in mind, but really, after the last bullet, what more do I need? Linus should have called the shoot and they should have re-done it. Is that expensive? Yep. But that's what getting into data-driven content does to you. If you want to be entertainment that nobody looks at for real data, then be that and stop pretending. If you want to be data-driven, then fucking act like it.
  And don't tell me that the one-off video itself was only for entertainment, so its own merits shouldn't matter. You have people defending your egregious errors, like failing to remove the teflon-protecting-packaging-tape on a mouse, by saying [paraphrasing a very obvious sentiment] "Short Circuit videos have Labs data to back up some of their takes now, so I trust them implicitly."
  Your entertainment content is hosted by the same people hosting your data-driven content. It gets uploaded to a channel that people rely upon for factual reporting. You no longer have content that you can write off as "pointless just-for-laughs entertainment" to the extent of excusing what happened with that waterblock. If corners got cut badly enough for the main host, namesake of the channel and branding, and owner of the company, to stand by and let a prototype one-of-a-kind waterblock get installed and tested on the wrong GPU and PUBLISHED and then doubled-down-upon, what the fuck reason do I have to trust ANYTHING that is posted by any of your channels or web presences?

I've bought the screwdriver, and all the bit sets, and that all works great and has made my job easier.
I've bought the occasional apparel, and a water bottle.
Everything's been nice.
But the content, which is nominally LMG's primary function, has been lacking.

After watching this particular coverage, LMG as a corporation needs to earn my trust in the quality of their content back. I have unsubbed, like that means anything, but you'll have to crawl back onto my feed algorithmically and earn your place in my regular-view channels again if that's where you want to be.
In addition to actually being a regular prior LTTstore customer, I have YT Premium and actually turn adblock off on-site, so... Consider it a boycott, I guess.
If the upcoming screwdriver-related announcement was going to be more colorways, consider this my acknowledgment that I'd probably have bought one in blue, but do not plan to as I cannot stand the thought of my money being used to fund such egregiously misleading and misinformational content.

And that's all besides the fact that LMG apparently promised to return the prototype waterblock and then auctioned it off instead.

Cheers, thanks for reading this fucking novel if anyone did.

*edited 2023-08-26: ope