Comment by geerlingguy
5 hours ago
I had three YouTube titles, this one got about 2x the watch time as the other two, so I let YT pick it.
For technical readers, I write my blog posts. I don't have to (I lose money hosting that thing and all it's mostly just free training data for Anthropic, OpenAI, et all), but I enjoy writing, so I do it anyway. If you don't like the YT game, please subscribe to the blog's RSS feed. I much prefer text over video.
Just because this title did the best doesn't make it not misleading. If you are a serious reviewer, it wouldn't have been an option in the first place.
You can make an even more outlandish title and get even more views. Doesn't make it right.
since it's too much to paste in here, here's 10 recent tech review videos from each of the top 10 most viewed tech youtubers:
https://pastebin.com/4PZe9iTf
Here's a few of them:
- Humane AI Pin Review: The Worst Product I've Ever Reviewed
- I Tested the World's Craziest Smartphone
- Do NOT Buy These Fake Tech Products!
- This Is Not a Normal Laptop...
- Unboxing the $10,000 Mystery Tech Box
- Don't Make This PC Building Mistake
- This Desk Accessory Changes Everything
- I Didn't Expect This Phone to Be This Good
- I Bought a Mystery Tech Box from Amazon
- Testing the Craziest Cheap Tech on Temu
Jeff Geerling's videos have fine titles.
Declaring that Jeff can't be a serious reviewer because he uses clickbait is kinda silly. Have you seen the state of journalism? Somehow the tabloids are frequently less clickbaity.
You are trying to launder responsibility for a clickbait title to a computer program. Then you try to shift the topic to the public good you are providing.
I don’t think it’s wrong to use clickbait, but come on, own up to it. You consciously chose to “let [YouTube] pick it.”
I never said it wasn't clickbait.
If you don't like it, either install DeArrow or subscribe to my blog, where I tone it down for the more technical audience. (Or block/ignore my content, no skin off my back!)
That's why you're not a serious reviewer. If you're serious, you wouldn't mislead people.
Even your blog post does not tell the truth nor does it have highlights of benchmarks that represent how people will actually use a $600 laptop.
The people who are buying these laptops are likely not very technical and it's your job to guide them. They wouldn't know that an FP64 test on the $600 laptop is near useless - yet you base the entire conclusion on it.
2 replies →
I think the lite tip of: “take your credibility seriously” stands, however you are getting attacked by pretty much one (ab-)user. (Those type of users are normally not even in your market.)
I think it’s pretty normal that you are incentivized by YT. Too bad the internet favors screaming and yelling. Pretty clear line you draw between writing and video.
Jeff, you may want to think about your credibility going forward. Please avoid becoming one of the "influencers" who collect pennies via clicks.
You have an opportunity to be continue to be taken seriously like you have been so far.
Surely there must be some way to avoid mis-leading clickbait titles.
Separately, asking your fellow community-members to not bother, and that too with an unaffected shrug, just kills the conversation we would want to have with you.
Overall you can always say - if you don't like it then ignore my content.
Then... people doing scam or misinformation can also say that
- ignore it.
No. We like your content.
While you may get more clicks etc at the moment - eventually you will lose subscribers.
You could have made the title at least like
- Intel tries hard to win against apple silicon - Almost there but not yet...