I hope you don’t take offense to this but are you on the spectrum?

No offense taken, I am indeed.

I can actually see what you mean about the review now that you put it that way. I have watched LTT for years (over a decade even) so I know their for-fun format vs. their review format but I can see how someone without that kind of familiarity wouldn’t. I do think there should be better distinction between them so cases like this don’t happen.

Since you asked the most obvious signs it’s not a review are the lack of any kind of conclusion, there’s no comparisons, no graphs/charts-- nothing that actually tests the product which you would see in their reviews. If you look at the last video they posted which is about the Fifine A6T microphone. You don’t even have to watch it, just look at the sections which are things like “Microphone Tests,” “Measurements,” and “Pickup Pattern.” The water block video sections are all things to do with building. Nothing related to testing.

As for the super car analogy, I have a 7950X. It is literally the most powerful consumer-grade CPU you can buy right now. I encode video so all 32 threads are running 100% for hours at a time. And I cool it with a Noctua NH-D15, an air cooler that cost me $90. It runs perfectly. Even if you have infinite money to throw around I just can’t see a reason to use an $800 water block when the best CPU you can get is fine with air cooling. At least with a super car it actually goes much faster than a normal car but spending 8x more on cooling is going to get you at most like a few percent more performance. I looked up some numbers and it’s even less than that. You lose 0.5% performance running a NH-U14S at 40% fan speed compared to an AIO, and that isn’t even as strong as the NH-D15 is. I couldn’t easily find any comparisons for a custom loop but I can’t imagine the difference is more than 2-3%. Which means its main purpose is to look cool I guess? But I’m sorry that still makes it a dumb product IMO even if there is a small market for it. I think I’d go as far as to say the market itself shouldn’t exist.

As for the auction, your explanation has helped me figure out why I didn’t feel as strongly about it. “For a claimed professional business” it is really bad but I wasn’t truly looking at LTT as a business. I know objectively it is one, but from an emotional standpoint it doesn’t really feel like one. Like I said before I’ve been watching them for over a decade, back when it was still NCIX Tech Tips. So in my head I am still imagining a guy and his friends messing around with tech and a camera. But it is hitting me now that they really have grown well beyond that. Linus has always done janky things. He’s even known as the guy who drops things. It’s also well known that people take things from the office all the time so items are constantly going missing. To me there is zero surprise that they would misplace something but as you said if they want to be a professional business then that is unacceptable. Maybe with the new CEO there will be more professionalism but honestly I’m not even sure I want that. Personally I love the jank. I enjoy Linus doing dumb things. I would hate to see it become a soulless corporation but I suppose that is what it is supposed to be.

But anyways, I have rambled on long enough. What you said was genuinely helpful. I really appreciate it and thank you for taking the time to make your response. Your friend’s sister is lucky to have you, not many people are willing things like this. Honestly you might even be the only one I’ve met. I feel like I can’t even remember a time where someone has done this for me. Usually people think I am “trolling” and someone in this thread even called me a sociopath, which I’m not going to lie was really disheartening but it’s not the first time. Thank you for treating me like a person.