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MKBHDs for Everything

stratechery.com

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Re: MKBHDs for Everything

#91

Post by imp0cat »

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #58
cmelbye wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guy was specifically talking about the video's headline, which was written to be clickbait like everything else on YouTube because that's how MKBHD pays his bills.

It's not clickbait. It is the worse product ever reviewed at that price point because it solves nothing. For now. You cannot just slap together a bunch of tech for no reason and then price it like Apple and pretend you're Apple. The fact that they received $240 million funding needs to be investigated in itself. Such terrible VCs need to be publicly humiliated.

The headline is not clickbait in this particular case, but it still sounds very "click-baity".

Re: MKBHDs for Everything

#93

Post by wodenokoto »

I found the article long winded and a bit unfocused.

But what appears to be one of the main points is that stratechery and MKBHD are both successful because they speak the truth, and they can speak the truth because they are online.

I quite disagree. MKBHD is more dependent on corporate sponsorship than reviewers were back when consumers had to buy a magazine in order to get access to a review.

Re: MKBHDs for Everything

#94

Post by mrtksn »

paxys wrote: post #49

This entire controversy is so stupidly overblown. MKBHD posts a fair and thorough review of a shitty product, which is exactly in line with what every other reviewer has said about it as well. One guy tweets about how he wasn't fair, and how he has a responsibility to not write bad things about companies because of the size of his viewer base (wut??) Now the entire internet feels the need to come defend MKBHD, thus a…

It feels like some folks have a sense of entitlement for customers and success and for some reason they project it on companies they like. Maybe they feel like someone from the pack was attacked?

Re: MKBHDs for Everything

#95

Post by Oras »

MichaelMug wrote: post #45

The drama tweets are just an ad. You kind of want to find out who "Daniel Vassallo" is, and of course he's selling a subscription.

That’s it really, mention someone with higher reach to get more visibility

Re: MKBHDs for Everything

#96

Post by SCdF »

This is a bizarre article, and feels like an example of that weird phenomenon where tech people believe they've discovered something new and noteworthy, but in reality they are just so deep into their bubble they are out of touch.

MKBHD is a tech critic / reviewer / nerd, like Ebert was a movie critic / reviewer / nerd, or Kermode is now. A thing got released, and he's talking about it, and his opinion is his value.

> Vassallo is touching on something profound about Brownlee, that I myself understand intimately: what the Internet has made uniquely possible is total loyalty to your customers, and that is threatening.

What? Threatening to what? Your ability to hoodwink people? Is the implication that because we're all in tech we should make sure to say everything's awesome all the time as some form of truth collusion, so that when we end up releasing our shitty product hopefully everyone will say nice things too?

Re: MKBHDs for Everything

#97

Post by fastball »

n42 wrote: post #88
paxys wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have an issue with the fact that he didn't put "AI Pin" in the title or that he called it the worst product he has reviewed? Because the "outrage" is very clearly about the latter. Heck if anything not putting the company and product name in the title actually helps them in this case.

To be clear, I have no issue with anything here, except that someone would think a title like "The worst product I've ever reviewed" is not clickbait. Clickbait does not mean bad. It does not mean I don't like it. It doesn't mean evil. It means it is bait designed to make you click. And clearly, if you look around you, it's working.

That seems like a poor definition of "clickbait" in the context of YouTube, as that definition would effectively apply to every video being put on the platform these days and as such makes the label meaningless.

Re: MKBHDs for Everything

#98

Post by giantrobot »

sourcecodeplz wrote: post #42
pcurve wrote: post #21

I really like MKBHD's videos, but he should've picked a different title for the video. Frankly, I feel it did way more damage to him than what he did to Aipin or Fisker, which were already universally panned.

Absolutely! This product is building a NEW CATEGORY, of course it is not going to be perfect on first itteration.

> This product is building a NEW CATEGORY, of course it is not going to be perfect on first itteration.

Oh man you're right. It's a NEW CATEGORY which means the product deserves softball reviews if not just thinly veiled advertisements. Since it's a NEW CATEGORY everyone should buy maybe two or three of them, you know since it's a NEW CATEGORY. We want to support NEW CATEGORIES because reasons.

You first.

Re: MKBHDs for Everything

#99

Post by SllX »

Gigachad wrote: post #33
sangeeth96 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. I don't get what's driving folks comparing this to the iPhone launch. Apples and oranges.

I read some old reviews of the iPhone recently and they seemed mostly positive but with some minor gripes about the software and bits that were not as good as existing smartphones. All small stuff that could be fixed up. The problem with this AI pin is that the entire concept seems bad and unfixable. Their whole product is just “your phone, but the only interface is Siri”. For one, you can already do exactly that wit…

> All small stuff that could be fixed up.

That this could happen is one of the most underrated aspects of the original iPhone.

In June 2007, the iPhone launched without a way to buy music on the phone and download it yourself, without copy and paste, and without a way to install any Apps. The app story was this little shit sandwich that Steve Jobs sold as a sweet solution called web apps announced earlier in the month (Web 2.0 and AJAX! No SDK!).

By the end of the first model’s life, it had the full iTunes Store, it had the App Store full of native apps, and it had cut, copy and paste. Any other phone that launched in 2007 did not see this level of improvement just through software updates in 2008 or 2009.

Re: MKBHDs for Everything

#100

Post by ncallaway »

n42 wrote: post #88
paxys wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have an issue with the fact that he didn't put "AI Pin" in the title or that he called it the worst product he has reviewed? Because the "outrage" is very clearly about the latter. Heck if anything not putting the company and product name in the title actually helps them in this case.

To be clear, I have no issue with anything here, except that someone would think a title like "The worst product I've ever reviewed" is not clickbait. Clickbait does not mean bad. It does not mean I don't like it. It doesn't mean evil. It means it is bait designed to make you click. And clearly, if you look around you, it's working.

I think there are two different definitions of clickbait that people are operating with.

One definition (maybe close to what your definition might be) is "a title written with the intent of getting people to click on it".

I think the other definition that many people hold would be something like: "a *misleading* title with the intent of getting people to click on it".

So, if someone thinks of clickbait as requiring some element of deception, misdirection, or other very mild fraud, then this wouldn't fit that category. I think that's why people are talking past each other a bit.

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