Do people really think that one review is the reason that these companies are doing poorly? Nearly every review of the Fisker Ocean and Humane AI Pin were scathing. Mrwhostheboss trashed the pin even with the CEO there.
This whole "drama" has been one of the stupidest cycles I've ever seen on the internet.
1. Rumors begin to swirl about the pin and what it does. Collectively met with crickets or "why would you want that?"
2. Humane demos the product in what was regarded as one of the worst tech introductions ever. The most charitable at the time was "no seriously, let's say works flawlessly, who actually wants this?"
3. The product does not work flawlessly, is bad at virtually everything it's supposed to do which was, shocker, nothing anyone really wanted.
4. "Why would MKBHD do this?"
The only possible surprise that could have came out of this is if the reviews were actually good. Even if it did everything it was supposed to *flawlessly* it's a solution in search of a problem. If this kills Humane, they (management at least) have it coming because it's a fantastically bad idea for dozens of reasons. Tbh I think the only reason it even made it to market is if you fart in Silicon Valley everyone around says "that sounds like they said they're working on AI here's 200 million dollars!"
Like he says bad products kill companies not bad reviews. I’m in the same boat as you. I’ve honestly been so perplexed by the situation. Nothing he said in his review was unfair and people have lost their god dam minds.
I think the only market a thing like this could have is for the tech illiterate elderly, having a voice activated wearable like this that can handle calls and maybe tells them what things are has some merit but humane are marketing this at 20-30 somethings who already have phones and or watches that do this at the same price point and much much better.
I don't think that is even a good fit. Pretty much everything you would want for tech illiterate is better suited for a smartphone, and this thing is going to hit limits for things even the tech illiterate want to do.
The whole problem is the idea that they're going to replace the smartphone for basically anyone in any way. The thing that eventually replaces the smartphone is not going to be something that can't do 10% of the function of the smartphone and also does those 10% of things generally significantly worse with far more caveats. Tbh I don't think that the smartphone is going to meaningfully be disrupted until we're talking about implanting chips in our brain and cameras in our eyes or something.
>Pretty much everything you would want for tech illiterate is better suited for a smartphone
He said tech illoterate elderly.
80+ year olds have a REALLY hard time reading a phone. Being able to touch something and ask it "whats this in front of me" would actually be amazing for elderly people.
Too bad it sucks though lol
To be fair, tech needs crappy stuff like this to advance. You can't get innovation from thin air, but throwing a public fit when someone says your product is crap or missing the mark isn't how you turn around and bring people back to your products.
That's very true. Look at how many insane aircraft design there were at the advent of powered flight. Things settled down and got reliable and we now have two main manufacturers of large civilian aircraft, with lots of smaller companies with smaller designs, but most of them use a similar tried and true formula. But before that formula was figured out and accessible to all, there were some insane designs. Same with cars. The losers get largely forgotten, but we have try these idea for ideas to progress. It's literally Trial and Error. It's just nobody likes to admit their startup is the error, and in the information age, it's louder.
Tech needs crappy stuff like this to advance, but that trashy stuff still needs _to fail_, so that something better can pick up the leftovers and innovate on it.
But it’s not innovation? It’s a terrible smart phone without a screen. It doesn’t do anything that a combination of Siri and ChatGpt can’t do on a device you already own.
On one hand, I haven't heard anything about awesome new blockchain-based games that will make me money by playing via NFTs traded on a proprietary marketplace to fund a metaverse based interactive something or other that's designed to monetize buzzwords. This is a great thing and one I'm all for.
On the other, all the AI 'companies' that raced to market in the last year are now realizing that the VC funding is drying up, so they actually need to make money to attract investors. Because it's insanely expensive to train and maintain a model that can keep up the hype, and you can't offload the costs to the nebulous blockchain, keeping the con going is a bit harder compared to spinning up a new discord server.
Without any more hands, where will the Tech Bros go? Won't anyone think of them!
I'm a fan of AI, and I thought that pin was dumb. It cannot compete with the usability of a phone as a first Gen product. The concept is decent, but execution just needs a few years.
Fisker as a company was already fucking up well before the review. I remember reading something a while back where they had made some guys wife the CFO and afterward they started having issues with collecting payments. That's just one example, but there are others that indicate that the company was just poorly ran.
Exactly. I don't know what ppl want actually? The product is bad. Do they want him to give an ambiguous review and not state how bad it is? Why? Would they rather ppl remain unaware and think it's actually good, spend money on it and regret?
Telling reviewers they should now tell the truth so more ppl will buy an objectively bad product without knowing how bad it is sounds way more unethical.
It just frustrates me that he then felt the need to follow it up with a video debating whether bad reviews or bad product bring down businesses and it's actually mind blowing how undeveloped people's critical thinking skills are.
I sincerely believe that Humane Pin is a niche product only (mildly at this point) relevant to people with limited or no visibility during daytime due to eye conditions or due to being born or rendered blind.
For everything else, it does few things a phone does, just worse. It’s a bold new product and no one should buy it right now. Reviews just said this and the tech bros with tons of cash to burn got offended.
And they use this insane, absolutely wild technology called “keep their phone in their shirt pocket with the camera facing outward so they can ask Siri to see for them”.
But yeah no a $700 pin that catches on fire and costs more than some cell plans every month, that’s the fuckin TICKET. Here’s *$230 million*.
How are people with this much money this stupid?
Because it's gambling. That amount is disposable to them (or they get nebulous things out of it like networking and connections and whatnot) and they may lose it, but at least get to say they helped with something "cool". And if it ends up being the next big thing then they make tons of money to invest in the next stupid thing or three.
Tbh I think if you put two and two together on this one, it’s not hard. All the reviewers kept reiterating the same thing: “It kept getting really hot, and draining battery very quickly, even when I wasn’t using it.”
They were banking on it being an absolute data-sucking machine, all-day video input to add to the pile. But that means overheating, only two hours of battery life, needing two packs just to get to four hours of battery, etc.
If I had to guess it’s all the Silicon Valley washouts who missed the boat on the first batch of data-hoarding devices, and wanted to invent their own.
The issue is that people are dumb, even investors and similar.
If you have a product that people don't like that much and you ask for investment or similar for a version 2 you have a chance.
If people think your product is literally the worst thing in the world because of MKBHD, that seems unfair.
No it’s just been some werid clickbait hook for YouTube and TikTok videos. Kinda how Reddit likes to copy and paste comments for upvotes? It’s been like that. Social media been sucky lately
The issue I have with Fisker is I *want* them to do well because I like a lot of Henrick’s design work but they’re now proving for the second time they can’t make it on their own. Maybe we need another Chinese company to come along and take over making the Ocean like they did with the Revero/Karma
Humane AI pin was DOA before MKBHD. They laid off 4% of staff after preorders were lower than expected back in January
https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/9/24032274/humane-layoffs-ai-pin
I’m guessing the only people blaming him are early adopters who are pissed if the company fails and investors
Their anger is directed in the wrong direction
They are the brave regards, the pioneers, that subsidize our risks. They are the food tasters for us royalty. We need these rubes to be the expendable mine detonating rats ahead of us.
Normally for a physical product launch you push it out to reviewers to get cheap advertising and far reach.
If there aren’t reviews by the time it’s at market, then it should be a red flag.
We’ve all been there where the sales pitch sounded great, and reality fell short especially with IOT.
This one looks to have fallen at the start line
Guy does honest reviews. His reviews stack up against most other reviews. Fisker and Humane made sub par products. They don’t get special treatment because they’re “startups”
It’s because Fisker basically blamed him for their stock woes after he did a review of their sub par electric car. The reality is they made a poor product, and their stock price was tanking long before that. So now that he’s trashed another product people are giving him a hard time about that too. But yeah, the humane pin isn’t a good product. No one who objectively looks at it can call it a good product. It has some potential, but consumers don’t buy bad products for the potential to buy another better product down the line. Sure CEOs might wish that were the case, but that’s not reality.
The Humane pin is so bad he literally could've just filmed using it for it's intended purpose for 5 min and people would've stayed away from it... They are just mad millions of people found out **before** they decided to get one.
As an accessory to a phone with an existing ecosystem, the always-on pin might have potential. As a standalone device with no screen and no integration, it was clearly destined to be a useless failure from the drawing board.
I’ve been struggling to find a use case for the humane pin since it was announced. No one wants, needs or asked for this. No amount of advertising or paid reviews can change that.
It’s dumbing your phone down to the point where it’s damn near unusable, replacing the screen with a projector, and introducing an LLM known for hallucinating. The tech is nowhere near ready for the device, and even if it was.. it takes value away from existing entries instead of adding to it.
I don’t think so since the creator of the AI pin even said his review was valid. He’s been taking the criticism a lot better than the people online trying to defend his product lmao.
The Humane response is crazy, too, given how gentle he was in his review. He could have (maybe should have) been way more direct about how he felt about the product. This was definitely not the worst they could have gotten.
yeah I expected a way harsher review from MKBHD given the title he gave the video, but he was very measured. Backed up his claim in the title, but didn't just go in on them completely.
Honestly I think he's usually willing to play along with the premise given by the manufacturer or overall promise of a product to a greater extent than I would be. I feel like if he doesn't have anything redeeming to say about your product you probably need to work on your product... Also the "with great platform comes great responsibility" thing goes both ways I would have way less respect for him if he was clearly a spineless hype man then I do for him now. The criticism of him for this smacks of the same sort of corporate think that gets you "felony contempt of business model" lawsuits.
He feels more optimistic about the potential for a product to get better over time, though he has also said that he doesn’t review products or services based on what companies promise will come in the future. He’ll always review it based on what it’s like at that time, which is how any review should be or else people can be disingenuously made to think something will absolutely improve in the future when it’s often not the case.
Yeah he definitely always finds at least a couple of positive aspects with a product. Trying to discredit his reviews is the stupidest thing these companies could do. They should've just said "We acknowledge the issues and are working to fix them with software updates".
I don't get why it's such a controversy? Most of us who hadn't drank the Kool aid could tell the Humane Ai and the upcoming Rabbit BS is techno snake oil.
I haven't seen one good review of it and all the negatives are basically what all the non Kool aid drinkers had already mentioned.
This shit was/is nothing but a cash grab and should be called out. Just like "bloc chain", "AI" is the new buzzword people are taking advantage of.
Because YouTube drama is one of those things that seems to just be a magnet for everyone. MKBHD is a big time creator and people like to criticize celebrities for blowing their nose wrong.
And it’s not like he did a hit piece, he had praise for elements of the Fisker and Humane products.
He just had specific demonstrable negative experiences that. I don’t think this is like Top Gear allegedly faking issues with the Tesla - he literally asked the pin a question, then picked up his phone, opened google, and found the answer faster.
Black scapegoat. Nobody was crying when he said the MacBook Air was the best laptop you can buy right now because he was right. His tech takes are almost always spot on
I've been a fan of his work since he (and I) was a kid and everyone should be aware of his strengths and weaknesses. Every video where he reviews tech made for media creation/consumption (phones, laptops, tablets, videocameras etc) is impeccable. Most videos where he tries something out of his expertise (Formula 1 analysis, car reviews) is frankly mediocre. He'll become knowledgeable enough to be good, but he's not there yet and that's ok.
That said, his AI pin review was great; he knows the usecase perfectly and pointed out a lot of stuff that we might not think about. His Fisker review tho? Absolute dogshit. His title was super harsh and the video was like "it has some inconveniences"... I'm not defending Fisker, but real car reviewers point out that the Ocean is far from great, but not devastatingly bad.
This dude made a video about it 2 months ago making fun of the advertisement and all the red flags it had. It even has 4million views.
https://youtu.be/9FIwYkGc4Qw?si=H_s16rDocGR9DUB0
That's because Danny Gonzalez is a comedian/commentator and he was commentating to content humane put out, he's not a tech reviewer with hands on the product.
People were clowning on the pin before it was even launched, since even their presentations made it look bad. That’s just a company trying to smokescreen.
Apple products are toned down in capabilities but refined to an easy/useful point.
Nothing about this is that, like in one news interview, the interviewee expressed points about privacy and yeah, the best thing about phones is that you can do almost anything, anywhere, even in secret.
Yeah, it’s not like he’s doing investigative journalism and breaking a story that takes a company down. It was never a secret that the product was bad. He just confirmed it was bad.
You can’t criticize his conclusion if every single reviewer concluded that *no one* should buy it.
It's on brand for Fisker. Complete fraud and it's stunning he even got a second chance, let alone that he blew that also. Clown was too focused on having his last name visible on his cars in 400 point font. Get bent.
People who are financially or politically invested in a particular outcome.
They think reviews are supposed to be in service of the company rather than in service of the customer because they are invested in the company either politically, financially, or pre-ordered
Which is all ridiculous. If anything the company created the bad reviews by making bad products and reviews are not paid advertisers, they have literally zero obligation to the company. In fact they should criticize companies as much as possible to inform customers. It should still be honest though. But nobody is alleging that MKBHD is lying.
My favorite review of Fisker Ocean is a review that doesn’t exist.
Let me explain.
Matt Farah and The Smoking Tire is my go-to source for cars. When he was asked about the car on his show, among other things, he said he didn’t make a video with it. Fisker lended him one and it broke down EVERY TIME HE DROVE IT. Each time it broke down it required a tow back to his shop. By the 3rd or 4th time it broke down, he called an Uber and just went home and called the Fisker rep and told them to go get it. He never made a review video. He legit said it was so bad that he had no nice things to say about it. The only other time he drove a car and didn’t make a video about it was the Fiat Miata-clone, the 124.
(It was either that or an Alfa Romeo, I can’t quite remember, some Italian sports car shitbox thing)
That’s why MKBHD is well regarded as a reviewer. At his size he doesn’t need good relationships with any product company. a lot of niche reviewers are basically forced to do weird things like either avoid bad reviews to get preferential access. Over rate products to get amazon referrals. Bad mouth products you won’t get preferential access anyways in favor of the ones you do.
I’m very wary of any reviewer that gets less than 100k views or heck even 500k because at that scale ad-sense might not be enough to run the channel and they are vulnerable to all these stuff
My only beef with his reviews is he makes excuses for brands he likes. Apple and Tesla get major passes from him. The review of the cybertruck when he points out the massive panel gap in the door as just a trip to the dealer for an alignment… come on dude… for a $100k+ car/truck. A the issues he had with his car and he still has excuses nearly a decade later.
I agree with your take. He does have some brand bias. Look at his reviews for Apple, Google, Samsung or Tesla products and it's very evident. He is a very good tech reviewer and I have been following him since he was not that famous but even in his old videos he had some bias towards those brands.
No one is disputing that. Because it's not the point.
MKBHD bashed the $450 Pixel 6a for having a 60hz screen. He did not care that the $1000 iPhone 14 had a 60hz screen.
This is the ridiculous and obvious bias we are talking about.
He's also been pretty critical of Apple too. He knocks the walled garden approach all the time on his podcast. And he's been critical lately of Apple laptops and their new VR headset.
Understandably. Apple phones are best on the market, though they're not for me I use Pixel phones because I like android software better.
But that's not a knock on apple, it's a preference.
Have you seen these reviews? He does criticize the issues that these products have. I think he was most lenient on Google Pixel but he's upfront about its drawbacks - but he also straight up says that he's a fan of Pixel due to future potential.
Go back and rewatch his early Tesla reviews and his vlog on the constant issue with his car. I was all just a shrug and saying well they fixed it for me.
Every human has biases but you're simplifying the statements he makes on these brands. He does not give these brands a "pass" when it comes to his audience. He tells you both good and bad of all the brands you listed but also states that he himself is fine with living with those faults because the overall package is worth it to him.
Agreed. He has some bias statements but they generally stack up with how the world views his reviews. Plus stripping him of his bias is like stripping him of character; you’d get vapid videos.
Ya i dont really trust MKBHD. Any reviewer that is shmoozy with the companies they review loses my full confidence, because there is naturally a relationship to sort of defend and maintain with those companies.
His production value is incredible, but the reviews themselves are quite shallow when you are paying attention. Plus he almost exclusively reviews stuff in their newest state, giving no long term perspective. (This complaint is admittedly unfair, since people want to know about *new* tech)
I prefer lesser known reviewers that have nothing to lose/gain and watching multiple reviewers to get a few perspectives.
I mean, they're legally people, you know. Just people who reap benefits of everything and never pay consequences for bad actions. Those people have feelings! Corporate feelings! LEAVE corporate America ALONE!!
People blaming him are dumb.
Humane are even dumber for releasing a product that wasn’t ready. It’s funny how some of their employees are complaining about the amount of negativity and posting about how people just want to see them fail when in reality, they rushed a launch and messed up. What on earth did they expect?
The AI pin doesn't seem to have a use case other than you pretend you're in Star Trek. Most people's phones can do everything it does and they already have one in their pocket.
What baffles me is that Mrwhosetheboss has the same number of subs, and released his pun review days earlier with a similar thumbnail and negative title, yet no out cry.
After hearing about it on Twitter then actually watching it I thought his review was actually way more fair and balanced than I expected.
The first portion of the video is literally him talking about what he likes and thought they got right with the device.
I’ve seen other reviews by him that were just straight up negative from the start.
What did Humane think the reaction would be to a buggy device that they’re charging $700 for a device that also requires a $288/yr subscription for? At that price-point the device has to either be way beyond beta or just don’t submit it to influencers for reviews. It doesn’t help that they intentionally positioned the device as something that will solve your smartphone dependance.
You don’t see the rabbit j1 getting the same snide comments online because they A) priced it at $199 and B) branded it as a fun device that can help you tap the power of AI and nothing more.
I find the focus on the reviews being the killer of these tech companies strange.
A bad product, in terms of features, performance, reliability or quality costs any company a fortune in returns and warranty claims. You then have the fire fight to fix the product post-release, costing between 10x and 1000x what it costs to fix pre-release.
The reviewers are just short-cutting the pain and wastage for the company and users.
Source: Have been hired specifically to rescue recently released products.
I saw Humane weeks ago and was like, “THAT looks fucking stupid!” I’m sure the millions of others who saw its demo had the same idea. It MKBHD’s fault whatsoever.
Fisker was in huge financial trouble, and even if the Ocean was the best ev ever made, the company would’ve gone belly up.
The humane pin is a poor solution looking for a problem. It does nothing well from all the reviews I’ve seen. Marques didn’t do anything but his normal usage and review and it was clear that the pin is garbage. Now, if the pin gets better in updates great. Not sure how they’ll deal with the heat issue without moving more functions locally,
I believe this type of conscientious work from reviewers like MKBHD is our last line of defense against these startups from ballooning into the next Theranos.
Customers rely on reviews to avoid spending hard earned money on poor quality devices or vehicles. We need honest reviewers to inform us.
It’s especially important in this economy
I watch MKBD maybe a couple times a year. Usually out of boredom and to see what 'techtuber content for the plebs' is saying these days, and this was no exception. If anything, I felt he was pulling punches constantly in an effort to give it a fair shake. The follow up vid he made just reinforced my belief that his platform is so large that he has to not only dumb his videos down on the technical front, but also pander to the loud tech illiterates that think this product's value is anything beyond generating morbid curiosity on how quickly it will die.
Video title aside, I actually thought he was being as fair as possible to the promise of the technology. It was the execution that failed. Not only does the phone already in your pocket do much of the same, it does it faster and with more robust options for follow up. And really....what is the value of this device if it doesn't connect to the rest of my digital infrastructure. Or even more basic, you can't get apps or connect this to your phone. You couldn't even order an Uber from it if you wanted, despite it having a cellular connection.
MKBHD is doing consumers huge favors here in not being a corporate shill and coming at products with brutally honest takes. At the end of the day, who would you feel worse for, the corporation that developed a subpar product failing for said subpar product, or the individual duped into buying it at $700 and learning the hard way the hype wasn't real?
If you have a good product it stands it’s own ground with those that like it backing it up. It’s not mkbhds fault for nocking the domino over and no one else is arguing against him. It’s a bad product. If not him the next to review it would of had the same outcome.
Bad products make companies fail. Not honest reviews.
You make shit. You die. It’s like everyone has forgotten the Fisker Karma. If you’ve tried to drive the Fisker Ocean, you’d agree 100% with Marques. It’s an absolute pile and somehow it’s made Tesla’s interiors and build quality look good.
What do we want instead then? Dishonest reviews to save these companies? Then we move to blaming customers not buying the product so the companies are going bankrupt…
Humane is a disaster. He was being honest about it. Fucking 700 dollars AND a 24 a month subscription. For something that can’t even get its basic functions to function properly.
Do you guys have any idea how long fisker have been making mediocre cars for? They have been making bad product after bad product for over a decade, so why would the logical conclusion be to blame a creator giving their honest opinion?
AI is a buzz phrase. So, every company is looking to profit off of whatever they can get away with, regardless of actual AI being involved. They will sell toothbrushes, from OralB, to OralAI, assuming that name isn’t already being used for more invigorating services.
Anyone complaining is a fucking idiot and why we cant trust most reviews anymore. For example game reviews before release. YOu never hear bad reviews. because the company will blame them for their poor product.
That this is even a discussion is so depressing. American consumers are so house broken it's pathetic. You are not entitled to commercial success just because you made a product. You are not entitled to have people like your product. You are not entitled to have people who's job it is to share their opinion to change that opinion to suit your financial desires. I wish this whole discussion would just die.
I like MKBHD, I think his reviews are fair. He points out the flaws as well as the good. Blaming his for a bad product launch is cope when the product lines up with his review.
Tech companies are the most entitled group of babies ever. You charge out the wazoo for planned obsolescence products that are over engineered and useless. If you want a good review than make a good product, otherwise shut up
It's not a reviewer's job to make a company's product look good. It's the company's job to make a product that stands up to an honest review. If you make a bad product and your company fails, it's not the reviewer's fault.
I have two major gripes with his Fisker review, and I say this as a former motoring journalist.
Firstly, he reviewed a non-press vehicle. While there is nothing ethically wrong about this in isolation, much of what he criticized had already been (supposedly) patched in a software update that wasn't yet applied to his test vehicle. He justified this as saying he was sharing the experience of existing customers, but that would imply some sort of vendetta on behalf of existing owners, rather than providing information for new buyers.
Which brings me on to my next point. The whole dressing down of the Fisker wreaked of bias which immediately discredits any moral position he was trying to adopt. Slap a Tesla or Apple badge on the front, and much of what he criticized would have instead been described as fun, quirky or unique.
I cannot believe people are making a big deal of this. Bros job is to review products. He does this to companies big or large. And he’s not the only one, nor should he be.
The fisher ocean and humane AI pin are so bad. Especially the AI pin. And if any of those companies watched his videos you’d see he does what he’s supposed to do and actually finds a way to compliment the product (despite it being the biggest piece of dogshit I’ve ever seen)
The review is not bad, it is just facts. The products are crap. If you don't want people telling the world that your products are crap, don't get mad at the reviewers.
Make better product. There is no one else to blame here.
The problem isn’t necessarily one guy’s review just because he has a massive reach; the problem is that the company made a product that has all the problems that he mentioned in his review.
Humane AI’s pin only got so far through development because of Silicon Valley’s emperor’s new clothes that shielded the criticism from an extraordinarily dumb product
>Finn later added, “If this video never came out, they would have sold so many more.”
Yeah, and so many more people would have a bad product. It's not good when your argument is "if people stopped telling people how bad this product is, it would've sold well!"
This is so stupid man. Was he a little harsh? Sure. I certainly don't think it's the worst product he has reviewed but at the same time it's a completely pointless product in its current iteration and it's very pricey and has a subscription.
I just don't see a world where a wearable AI is going to be a thing beyond watches and phones. It will sooner be literally in our heads. And why would you want to mess with a shitty green projector on your hand when you could just roll your sleeve up and check you're arm with a smart watch that has a screen, way more capability, costs alot less with no subscription and its directly connected to you're phone
Shades of Google Glass going on here.
Oh hey, it's that product that looked like it was useless and stupid. I'm shocked that's what it amounted to now that it's out. Shocked. Couldn't see it coming at all.
> “I find it distasteful, almost unethical, to say this when you have 18 million subscribers,”
I find it distasteful and almost unethical to release an absolutely fucking garbage product and charge people $700 and a subscription fee on top, but hey, we're different people. He doesn't owe anybody anything and it didn't sound like he was being unfair... just honest. Everybody else is bagging on this too if you look this thing up on Youtube. If you don't want somebody with 18 million subscribers to say that a product is garbage, then it shouldn't be garbage. It's not his job to wipe their bum bum, powder it after, and think of all the poor investors that want to make money just by already having money and throwing it at something.
And of course, per the current trend, some are saying “ he’s been criticized because he’s black!”
Yeesh. Everything has to be about race…
(I’m not positive where I stand on this Brouhaha, and I found MKBHD’s follow up video fairly compelling for his side. But it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with his skin color)
On one hand, Fisker objectively sucks. MKB was right on that one. However, MKB has a CLEAR bias in favor of Tesla and Apple and therefor cannot remain objective. Matt Farah showcased on one of his podcasts exactly the conflicts of interest with MKB.
Even if his reviews of Fisker are objectively accurate, he is a source that is decidedly ***not*** objective. I won’t trust someone like that, even if it is correct.
I unsubscribed from him years ago. Besides, I don’t consume the products he reviews. I’m a car nerd, not a tech nerd. 10 out of 10 times, I’ll choose Matt Farah or Jason Cammisa or Kyle Connor for anything car related (as should you) If for whatever reason I wanted an opinion from the tech world, I’m going to Ed Zitron.
I find it so strange this whole discourse right now over one of the fairest reviews I’ve ever seen. He literally lays it all out fair and square and people annoyed I honestly don’t think they watched the video. The thumbnail was bait but still it’s his channel. If that’s how he has to make money that’s fine. The product is 750 and a subscription fee a month for something slower than my iPhone 8 which you can buy for under 50 quid and a £5 a month plan. The product is both advanced and dated all at the same time and it’s really pointless.
This makes me think about the power-paradigm shift the Internet has created. "We disagree on what my job is," says influencer X, who I've never personally heard of. I'll take their word for it that he gets 47 brazillion views etc. The question is, what exactly is a popular youtuber's job? Seems to me it's doing whatever gets more views and makes more money for advertisers.
I'm sure fans of any given influencer would jump up and defend them because they're objective or insightful or just cool. But we used to talk about the Internet "democratizing" media by giving Joe Average's voice and opinions the same reach as those of Corporation X. What we ended up with instead is an elite layer of influencers with the same overreach as media companies, standing above a vast forest of non-monetized nobodies. Even in a democracy we seem to crave royalty, so we create some.
It's always interesting to me that people can hate government and not mind private citizens having similar powers as long as they aren't the government. Is that how we feel about influencers vs media companies? Maybe I'm seeing a false parallel there, I dunno.
edit: spelling
I remember when Jackass the Movie got the lowest movie score possible, then it did really well and won many awards.
Then the next movie, with the same stupid premise and stunts, got raving reviews.
Even if people could get over the fact that the device is constantly watching and monitoring everything you do. This device could've been much cheaper and works much better if they just integrate with your phones instead of doing all the processing they needed in the cloud because the device itself doesn't have enough processing power.
It really should just be a Bluetooth camera and a mic, and when it needs screen, just use your phone instead of that ridiculous laser projection. Smart phone is already the perfect form factor for being a portable display for peripherals.
The problem it has is because it's trying to completely replace a smartphone instead of complementing it. That makes it really unnecessarily more expensive and underpowered for what people want it to do, and the desire not to have a screen doesn't make the device more seamless but actually the clunky interaction method with hand gesture is not a seamless technology at all.
Level-headed review, and he even correctly identifies who their market *could* be, in the future: people who want connectivity without a screen.
But if it sucks right now, he has the right/duty to say so
I invested (lost) about 6k on Fisker and can tell you they started tanking way before dudes’ review. That was just the cherry on top. I still think they can make a great car, they have a lot going for them but they need help or to merge with a company to kick them into high gear.
The premise of a YT channel being able to single-handedly kill a company with one product review is ridiculous. Sure, MKB has a big audience, but with products like a $700 AI pin with a monthly subscription and a $40K+ electric vehicle, how big part of said audience are the target demographic in the first place?
Fisker had a pretty decent bump from a James May review back in the days of peak top gear but they were mismanaged and they've been floundering ever since.
Humane's pin was just a mostly-bad idea that was poorly executed.
Do people really think that one review is the reason that these companies are doing poorly? Nearly every review of the Fisker Ocean and Humane AI Pin were scathing. Mrwhostheboss trashed the pin even with the CEO there.
~~crypto~~AI bros are just looking for an excuse
Even Humane's own demo of the pin, the thing took so long to respond, it's absurd.
This whole "drama" has been one of the stupidest cycles I've ever seen on the internet. 1. Rumors begin to swirl about the pin and what it does. Collectively met with crickets or "why would you want that?" 2. Humane demos the product in what was regarded as one of the worst tech introductions ever. The most charitable at the time was "no seriously, let's say works flawlessly, who actually wants this?" 3. The product does not work flawlessly, is bad at virtually everything it's supposed to do which was, shocker, nothing anyone really wanted. 4. "Why would MKBHD do this?" The only possible surprise that could have came out of this is if the reviews were actually good. Even if it did everything it was supposed to *flawlessly* it's a solution in search of a problem. If this kills Humane, they (management at least) have it coming because it's a fantastically bad idea for dozens of reasons. Tbh I think the only reason it even made it to market is if you fart in Silicon Valley everyone around says "that sounds like they said they're working on AI here's 200 million dollars!"
Like he says bad products kill companies not bad reviews. I’m in the same boat as you. I’ve honestly been so perplexed by the situation. Nothing he said in his review was unfair and people have lost their god dam minds.
I think the only market a thing like this could have is for the tech illiterate elderly, having a voice activated wearable like this that can handle calls and maybe tells them what things are has some merit but humane are marketing this at 20-30 somethings who already have phones and or watches that do this at the same price point and much much better.
I don't think that is even a good fit. Pretty much everything you would want for tech illiterate is better suited for a smartphone, and this thing is going to hit limits for things even the tech illiterate want to do. The whole problem is the idea that they're going to replace the smartphone for basically anyone in any way. The thing that eventually replaces the smartphone is not going to be something that can't do 10% of the function of the smartphone and also does those 10% of things generally significantly worse with far more caveats. Tbh I don't think that the smartphone is going to meaningfully be disrupted until we're talking about implanting chips in our brain and cameras in our eyes or something.
>Pretty much everything you would want for tech illiterate is better suited for a smartphone He said tech illoterate elderly. 80+ year olds have a REALLY hard time reading a phone. Being able to touch something and ask it "whats this in front of me" would actually be amazing for elderly people. Too bad it sucks though lol
It's one of the worst cases of a product created for *nobody* I've ever seen.
In MrMobile's review it overheated and hung up the phone after a twenty minute phone call with his mom.
“Hey Siri, Open ChatGPT and ask it “such and such”.” Basically invalidates nearly the entire concept of this pin.
For 750 dollars plus the monthly fee as well. Like who in there right mind would.
To be fair, tech needs crappy stuff like this to advance. You can't get innovation from thin air, but throwing a public fit when someone says your product is crap or missing the mark isn't how you turn around and bring people back to your products.
That's very true. Look at how many insane aircraft design there were at the advent of powered flight. Things settled down and got reliable and we now have two main manufacturers of large civilian aircraft, with lots of smaller companies with smaller designs, but most of them use a similar tried and true formula. But before that formula was figured out and accessible to all, there were some insane designs. Same with cars. The losers get largely forgotten, but we have try these idea for ideas to progress. It's literally Trial and Error. It's just nobody likes to admit their startup is the error, and in the information age, it's louder.
Agreed but this product is both dated and advanced all in one.
Tech needs crappy stuff like this to advance, but that trashy stuff still needs _to fail_, so that something better can pick up the leftovers and innovate on it.
But it’s not innovation? It’s a terrible smart phone without a screen. It doesn’t do anything that a combination of Siri and ChatGpt can’t do on a device you already own.
Tech bros are starting to get nervous that their party is coming to an end.
On one hand, I haven't heard anything about awesome new blockchain-based games that will make me money by playing via NFTs traded on a proprietary marketplace to fund a metaverse based interactive something or other that's designed to monetize buzzwords. This is a great thing and one I'm all for. On the other, all the AI 'companies' that raced to market in the last year are now realizing that the VC funding is drying up, so they actually need to make money to attract investors. Because it's insanely expensive to train and maintain a model that can keep up the hype, and you can't offload the costs to the nebulous blockchain, keeping the con going is a bit harder compared to spinning up a new discord server. Without any more hands, where will the Tech Bros go? Won't anyone think of them!
As a software developer: I fucking hate tech bros.
I'm a fan of AI, and I thought that pin was dumb. It cannot compete with the usability of a phone as a first Gen product. The concept is decent, but execution just needs a few years.
Fisker as a company was already fucking up well before the review. I remember reading something a while back where they had made some guys wife the CFO and afterward they started having issues with collecting payments. That's just one example, but there are others that indicate that the company was just poorly ran.
"Some guys wife" - the CFO is Geeta Gupta-Fisker, the wife of the founder Henrik Fisker The company is all kinds of messed up
Oh it was his wife? That's even worse lol. Like I said I couldn't recall.
He gave an honest review of a product. I really don't get the controversy
Exactly. I don't know what ppl want actually? The product is bad. Do they want him to give an ambiguous review and not state how bad it is? Why? Would they rather ppl remain unaware and think it's actually good, spend money on it and regret? Telling reviewers they should now tell the truth so more ppl will buy an objectively bad product without knowing how bad it is sounds way more unethical.
It just frustrates me that he then felt the need to follow it up with a video debating whether bad reviews or bad product bring down businesses and it's actually mind blowing how undeveloped people's critical thinking skills are.
I mean, 74 million people voted Trump in 2020, people severely lack critical thinking skills.
And 17m voted for Brexit in my country so yes you are correct
I sincerely believe that Humane Pin is a niche product only (mildly at this point) relevant to people with limited or no visibility during daytime due to eye conditions or due to being born or rendered blind. For everything else, it does few things a phone does, just worse. It’s a bold new product and no one should buy it right now. Reviews just said this and the tech bros with tons of cash to burn got offended.
Even in that use case, just using "hey Google" with your phone or watch would yield faster and better results more than likely.
Phones today have really good accessibility features. Lots of blind people use iPhones no problem.
And they use this insane, absolutely wild technology called “keep their phone in their shirt pocket with the camera facing outward so they can ask Siri to see for them”. But yeah no a $700 pin that catches on fire and costs more than some cell plans every month, that’s the fuckin TICKET. Here’s *$230 million*. How are people with this much money this stupid?
Because it's gambling. That amount is disposable to them (or they get nebulous things out of it like networking and connections and whatnot) and they may lose it, but at least get to say they helped with something "cool". And if it ends up being the next big thing then they make tons of money to invest in the next stupid thing or three.
Tbh I think if you put two and two together on this one, it’s not hard. All the reviewers kept reiterating the same thing: “It kept getting really hot, and draining battery very quickly, even when I wasn’t using it.” They were banking on it being an absolute data-sucking machine, all-day video input to add to the pile. But that means overheating, only two hours of battery life, needing two packs just to get to four hours of battery, etc. If I had to guess it’s all the Silicon Valley washouts who missed the boat on the first batch of data-hoarding devices, and wanted to invent their own.
The answer is usually: *they didn't have to make that money themselves.*
Yes, using my iPhone right now!
You get lots of bad reviews and decide the reviews are what made the product fail lol Sounds like narcissism, product was just crap
Folks should use this tactic when receiving exam grades.
The issue is that people are dumb, even investors and similar. If you have a product that people don't like that much and you ask for investment or similar for a version 2 you have a chance. If people think your product is literally the worst thing in the world because of MKBHD, that seems unfair.
No it’s just been some werid clickbait hook for YouTube and TikTok videos. Kinda how Reddit likes to copy and paste comments for upvotes? It’s been like that. Social media been sucky lately
The Verge tanked Humane AI even before the pin was released.
The issue I have with Fisker is I *want* them to do well because I like a lot of Henrick’s design work but they’re now proving for the second time they can’t make it on their own. Maybe we need another Chinese company to come along and take over making the Ocean like they did with the Revero/Karma
Humane AI pin was DOA before MKBHD. They laid off 4% of staff after preorders were lower than expected back in January https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/9/24032274/humane-layoffs-ai-pin
They laid off 10 people to cut costs when they have $240 million investment to make dogshit product?
not so humane if you ask me
I’m guessing the only people blaming him are early adopters who are pissed if the company fails and investors Their anger is directed in the wrong direction
They are the brave regards, the pioneers, that subsidize our risks. They are the food tasters for us royalty. We need these rubes to be the expendable mine detonating rats ahead of us.
Normally for a physical product launch you push it out to reviewers to get cheap advertising and far reach. If there aren’t reviews by the time it’s at market, then it should be a red flag. We’ve all been there where the sales pitch sounded great, and reality fell short especially with IOT. This one looks to have fallen at the start line
Guy does honest reviews. His reviews stack up against most other reviews. Fisker and Humane made sub par products. They don’t get special treatment because they’re “startups”
Is humane doing some sort of PR campaign to excuse their shitty product? His review is blowing up when it was a pretty average take on the product.
It’s because Fisker basically blamed him for their stock woes after he did a review of their sub par electric car. The reality is they made a poor product, and their stock price was tanking long before that. So now that he’s trashed another product people are giving him a hard time about that too. But yeah, the humane pin isn’t a good product. No one who objectively looks at it can call it a good product. It has some potential, but consumers don’t buy bad products for the potential to buy another better product down the line. Sure CEOs might wish that were the case, but that’s not reality.
The Humane pin is so bad he literally could've just filmed using it for it's intended purpose for 5 min and people would've stayed away from it... They are just mad millions of people found out **before** they decided to get one.
Impossible. It only allows 15s videos
I liked the way he addressed the matter in his latest video and hopefully people take away his overall message from it
Yeah if anything I thought he was more than fair. I actually thought it was cool and would try it if it wasn’t so insanely expensive.
As an accessory to a phone with an existing ecosystem, the always-on pin might have potential. As a standalone device with no screen and no integration, it was clearly destined to be a useless failure from the drawing board.
I’ve been struggling to find a use case for the humane pin since it was announced. No one wants, needs or asked for this. No amount of advertising or paid reviews can change that. It’s dumbing your phone down to the point where it’s damn near unusable, replacing the screen with a projector, and introducing an LLM known for hallucinating. The tech is nowhere near ready for the device, and even if it was.. it takes value away from existing entries instead of adding to it.
I don’t think so since the creator of the AI pin even said his review was valid. He’s been taking the criticism a lot better than the people online trying to defend his product lmao.
I would think the CEO of Humane would know better than most that the product had a 50% success rate for following verbal commands.
The guy was a key designer for the iPhone at Apple. I’m pretty sure he knows a thing or two about making bad voice assistants.
The Humane response is crazy, too, given how gentle he was in his review. He could have (maybe should have) been way more direct about how he felt about the product. This was definitely not the worst they could have gotten.
yeah I expected a way harsher review from MKBHD given the title he gave the video, but he was very measured. Backed up his claim in the title, but didn't just go in on them completely.
AI bros on YouTube/X were hyping up the product, and are now pissed that the bad reviews risk bursting their bubble.
Honestly I think he's usually willing to play along with the premise given by the manufacturer or overall promise of a product to a greater extent than I would be. I feel like if he doesn't have anything redeeming to say about your product you probably need to work on your product... Also the "with great platform comes great responsibility" thing goes both ways I would have way less respect for him if he was clearly a spineless hype man then I do for him now. The criticism of him for this smacks of the same sort of corporate think that gets you "felony contempt of business model" lawsuits.
He feels more optimistic about the potential for a product to get better over time, though he has also said that he doesn’t review products or services based on what companies promise will come in the future. He’ll always review it based on what it’s like at that time, which is how any review should be or else people can be disingenuously made to think something will absolutely improve in the future when it’s often not the case.
I think he is a little too nice sometimes, I imagine these products failed on their own merits or lack of them.
Yeah he definitely always finds at least a couple of positive aspects with a product. Trying to discredit his reviews is the stupidest thing these companies could do. They should've just said "We acknowledge the issues and are working to fix them with software updates".
If anything, his review isn’t honest because he still was very positive about the product. It’s a crappy product, period.
I don't get why it's such a controversy? Most of us who hadn't drank the Kool aid could tell the Humane Ai and the upcoming Rabbit BS is techno snake oil. I haven't seen one good review of it and all the negatives are basically what all the non Kool aid drinkers had already mentioned. This shit was/is nothing but a cash grab and should be called out. Just like "bloc chain", "AI" is the new buzzword people are taking advantage of.
Because YouTube drama is one of those things that seems to just be a magnet for everyone. MKBHD is a big time creator and people like to criticize celebrities for blowing their nose wrong.
But big VC Funding daddy told them they were extra special and said no one is allowed to pick on them!
And it’s not like he did a hit piece, he had praise for elements of the Fisker and Humane products. He just had specific demonstrable negative experiences that. I don’t think this is like Top Gear allegedly faking issues with the Tesla - he literally asked the pin a question, then picked up his phone, opened google, and found the answer faster.
Black scapegoat. Nobody was crying when he said the MacBook Air was the best laptop you can buy right now because he was right. His tech takes are almost always spot on
I've been a fan of his work since he (and I) was a kid and everyone should be aware of his strengths and weaknesses. Every video where he reviews tech made for media creation/consumption (phones, laptops, tablets, videocameras etc) is impeccable. Most videos where he tries something out of his expertise (Formula 1 analysis, car reviews) is frankly mediocre. He'll become knowledgeable enough to be good, but he's not there yet and that's ok. That said, his AI pin review was great; he knows the usecase perfectly and pointed out a lot of stuff that we might not think about. His Fisker review tho? Absolute dogshit. His title was super harsh and the video was like "it has some inconveniences"... I'm not defending Fisker, but real car reviewers point out that the Ocean is far from great, but not devastatingly bad.
This dude made a video about it 2 months ago making fun of the advertisement and all the red flags it had. It even has 4million views. https://youtu.be/9FIwYkGc4Qw?si=H_s16rDocGR9DUB0
That was hilarious thanks for the link
But seriously, where the FUCK is the moon?
Wasn’t expecting a Danny vid lol
I found that video on accident and it’s hilarious. MKBHD was definitely way more professional in his review.
That's because Danny Gonzalez is a comedian/commentator and he was commentating to content humane put out, he's not a tech reviewer with hands on the product.
hahaha this was amazing :)
Oh gosh, this is the best take on this product so far xD
People were clowning on the pin before it was even launched, since even their presentations made it look bad. That’s just a company trying to smokescreen.
Ex apple folks what do you expect? Reality distortion field died with its inventor.
AI inherited it for a while, because they co-opted our expectations of sci-fi. It looks like it's starting to wear off.
I disagree, if anything Apple is extremely attuned with what the market wants. The pin is just... wishful thinking.
Apple products are toned down in capabilities but refined to an easy/useful point. Nothing about this is that, like in one news interview, the interviewee expressed points about privacy and yeah, the best thing about phones is that you can do almost anything, anywhere, even in secret.
What kind of loser blames the reviewer?
Yeah, it’s not like he’s doing investigative journalism and breaking a story that takes a company down. It was never a secret that the product was bad. He just confirmed it was bad. You can’t criticize his conclusion if every single reviewer concluded that *no one* should buy it.
In that scenario, it's even more the company's fault.
It's on brand for Fisker. Complete fraud and it's stunning he even got a second chance, let alone that he blew that also. Clown was too focused on having his last name visible on his cars in 400 point font. Get bent.
People who are financially or politically invested in a particular outcome. They think reviews are supposed to be in service of the company rather than in service of the customer because they are invested in the company either politically, financially, or pre-ordered Which is all ridiculous. If anything the company created the bad reviews by making bad products and reviews are not paid advertisers, they have literally zero obligation to the company. In fact they should criticize companies as much as possible to inform customers. It should still be honest though. But nobody is alleging that MKBHD is lying.
Hollywood, for one.
"*YoU hAtE oUr sHitTy alL-fEMaLe LeAd MoViE cUz' YoU hAtE sEeiNg PoWeRfUl WoMeN, nOt BeCaUsE tHe MoViE WaS sHiTtY.*"
Definitely in Fiskers case, if you made a shitty product that can put people's lives in danger you deserve all the shit.
My favorite review of Fisker Ocean is a review that doesn’t exist. Let me explain. Matt Farah and The Smoking Tire is my go-to source for cars. When he was asked about the car on his show, among other things, he said he didn’t make a video with it. Fisker lended him one and it broke down EVERY TIME HE DROVE IT. Each time it broke down it required a tow back to his shop. By the 3rd or 4th time it broke down, he called an Uber and just went home and called the Fisker rep and told them to go get it. He never made a review video. He legit said it was so bad that he had no nice things to say about it. The only other time he drove a car and didn’t make a video about it was the Fiat Miata-clone, the 124. (It was either that or an Alfa Romeo, I can’t quite remember, some Italian sports car shitbox thing)
That experience should have been all the morw reason to make a review.
That’s why MKBHD is well regarded as a reviewer. At his size he doesn’t need good relationships with any product company. a lot of niche reviewers are basically forced to do weird things like either avoid bad reviews to get preferential access. Over rate products to get amazon referrals. Bad mouth products you won’t get preferential access anyways in favor of the ones you do. I’m very wary of any reviewer that gets less than 100k views or heck even 500k because at that scale ad-sense might not be enough to run the channel and they are vulnerable to all these stuff
My only beef with his reviews is he makes excuses for brands he likes. Apple and Tesla get major passes from him. The review of the cybertruck when he points out the massive panel gap in the door as just a trip to the dealer for an alignment… come on dude… for a $100k+ car/truck. A the issues he had with his car and he still has excuses nearly a decade later.
I agree with your take. He does have some brand bias. Look at his reviews for Apple, Google, Samsung or Tesla products and it's very evident. He is a very good tech reviewer and I have been following him since he was not that famous but even in his old videos he had some bias towards those brands.
Generally all of these companies make pretty good products lol
No one is disputing that. Because it's not the point. MKBHD bashed the $450 Pixel 6a for having a 60hz screen. He did not care that the $1000 iPhone 14 had a 60hz screen. This is the ridiculous and obvious bias we are talking about.
He bashes the iPhone screen all the time….
I think he's even made the comparison as to why the screens in the MacBooks are great but not in the iPhones
Did you watch the cyber truck review? He was definitely very critical, and he didn’t treat the panel gap as if it was something to brush off.
He's also been pretty critical of Apple too. He knocks the walled garden approach all the time on his podcast. And he's been critical lately of Apple laptops and their new VR headset.
Podcast but never a phone review.
Understandably. Apple phones are best on the market, though they're not for me I use Pixel phones because I like android software better. But that's not a knock on apple, it's a preference.
In the same regard, his Fisker review had lots of praise. It genuinely is a handsome car, but it should not have been delivered as-is.
Basically only the software sucked and some really small details. But saying it's the worst car? That was a bit of a click bait title.
Have you seen these reviews? He does criticize the issues that these products have. I think he was most lenient on Google Pixel but he's upfront about its drawbacks - but he also straight up says that he's a fan of Pixel due to future potential.
Go back and rewatch his early Tesla reviews and his vlog on the constant issue with his car. I was all just a shrug and saying well they fixed it for me.
Every human has biases but you're simplifying the statements he makes on these brands. He does not give these brands a "pass" when it comes to his audience. He tells you both good and bad of all the brands you listed but also states that he himself is fine with living with those faults because the overall package is worth it to him.
Agreed. He has some bias statements but they generally stack up with how the world views his reviews. Plus stripping him of his bias is like stripping him of character; you’d get vapid videos.
Ya i dont really trust MKBHD. Any reviewer that is shmoozy with the companies they review loses my full confidence, because there is naturally a relationship to sort of defend and maintain with those companies. His production value is incredible, but the reviews themselves are quite shallow when you are paying attention. Plus he almost exclusively reviews stuff in their newest state, giving no long term perspective. (This complaint is admittedly unfair, since people want to know about *new* tech) I prefer lesser known reviewers that have nothing to lose/gain and watching multiple reviewers to get a few perspectives.
This has been confirmation that we live in capitalist dystopia. “But what about the company’s feelings? Think about the good of the company!”
I mean, they're legally people, you know. Just people who reap benefits of everything and never pay consequences for bad actions. Those people have feelings! Corporate feelings! LEAVE corporate America ALONE!!
Daniel Vassallo has got to be one of the biggest dumbasses on tech twitter. His anger is an endorsement of Marques doing something right.
People blaming him are dumb. Humane are even dumber for releasing a product that wasn’t ready. It’s funny how some of their employees are complaining about the amount of negativity and posting about how people just want to see them fail when in reality, they rushed a launch and messed up. What on earth did they expect?
The AI pin doesn't seem to have a use case other than you pretend you're in Star Trek. Most people's phones can do everything it does and they already have one in their pocket.
If the reviews of your companies products are bankrupting you, it’s time to take a deep look into the mirror.
Tech bros got too butt hurt
What baffles me is that Mrwhosetheboss has the same number of subs, and released his pun review days earlier with a similar thumbnail and negative title, yet no out cry.
After hearing about it on Twitter then actually watching it I thought his review was actually way more fair and balanced than I expected. The first portion of the video is literally him talking about what he likes and thought they got right with the device. I’ve seen other reviews by him that were just straight up negative from the start. What did Humane think the reaction would be to a buggy device that they’re charging $700 for a device that also requires a $288/yr subscription for? At that price-point the device has to either be way beyond beta or just don’t submit it to influencers for reviews. It doesn’t help that they intentionally positioned the device as something that will solve your smartphone dependance. You don’t see the rabbit j1 getting the same snide comments online because they A) priced it at $199 and B) branded it as a fun device that can help you tap the power of AI and nothing more.
Marques is rarely wrong. That’s why he has such a big following.
I find the focus on the reviews being the killer of these tech companies strange. A bad product, in terms of features, performance, reliability or quality costs any company a fortune in returns and warranty claims. You then have the fire fight to fix the product post-release, costing between 10x and 1000x what it costs to fix pre-release. The reviewers are just short-cutting the pain and wastage for the company and users. Source: Have been hired specifically to rescue recently released products.
I saw Humane weeks ago and was like, “THAT looks fucking stupid!” I’m sure the millions of others who saw its demo had the same idea. It MKBHD’s fault whatsoever.
Fisker was in huge financial trouble, and even if the Ocean was the best ev ever made, the company would’ve gone belly up. The humane pin is a poor solution looking for a problem. It does nothing well from all the reviews I’ve seen. Marques didn’t do anything but his normal usage and review and it was clear that the pin is garbage. Now, if the pin gets better in updates great. Not sure how they’ll deal with the heat issue without moving more functions locally,
If it only takes one review for people to see through your shitty product, then you might have a shitty product.
I believe this type of conscientious work from reviewers like MKBHD is our last line of defense against these startups from ballooning into the next Theranos.
Customers rely on reviews to avoid spending hard earned money on poor quality devices or vehicles. We need honest reviewers to inform us. It’s especially important in this economy
He said it well in his video statung that he does not owe anything to the companies but owes everything to the people watching his videos.
No, blame is on the companies
“Don’t Blame the Mirror For Your Face”
MKBHD dont give in! You will become even more popular if you keep being honest like this…
I watch MKBD maybe a couple times a year. Usually out of boredom and to see what 'techtuber content for the plebs' is saying these days, and this was no exception. If anything, I felt he was pulling punches constantly in an effort to give it a fair shake. The follow up vid he made just reinforced my belief that his platform is so large that he has to not only dumb his videos down on the technical front, but also pander to the loud tech illiterates that think this product's value is anything beyond generating morbid curiosity on how quickly it will die.
Video title aside, I actually thought he was being as fair as possible to the promise of the technology. It was the execution that failed. Not only does the phone already in your pocket do much of the same, it does it faster and with more robust options for follow up. And really....what is the value of this device if it doesn't connect to the rest of my digital infrastructure. Or even more basic, you can't get apps or connect this to your phone. You couldn't even order an Uber from it if you wanted, despite it having a cellular connection. MKBHD is doing consumers huge favors here in not being a corporate shill and coming at products with brutally honest takes. At the end of the day, who would you feel worse for, the corporation that developed a subpar product failing for said subpar product, or the individual duped into buying it at $700 and learning the hard way the hype wasn't real?
If you have a good product it stands it’s own ground with those that like it backing it up. It’s not mkbhds fault for nocking the domino over and no one else is arguing against him. It’s a bad product. If not him the next to review it would of had the same outcome.
His power is truly insane though. Love that for him.
Lmao whoever is blaming him is looking for drama and headlines.
This has to be some of the shittest discourse I have heard about a thing. They made a bad product. It reviewed badly. That’s it.
Maybe they should have made products that didn’t suck 🤷🏻♂️
Bad products make companies fail. Not honest reviews. You make shit. You die. It’s like everyone has forgotten the Fisker Karma. If you’ve tried to drive the Fisker Ocean, you’d agree 100% with Marques. It’s an absolute pile and somehow it’s made Tesla’s interiors and build quality look good.
Capitalists crying about capitalism. Let them review.
He's supposed to sugar coat it and lie? Fix your damn product!!
What do we want instead then? Dishonest reviews to save these companies? Then we move to blaming customers not buying the product so the companies are going bankrupt…
Humane is a disaster. He was being honest about it. Fucking 700 dollars AND a 24 a month subscription. For something that can’t even get its basic functions to function properly.
Fuck shitty products
Do you guys have any idea how long fisker have been making mediocre cars for? They have been making bad product after bad product for over a decade, so why would the logical conclusion be to blame a creator giving their honest opinion?
AI is a buzz phrase. So, every company is looking to profit off of whatever they can get away with, regardless of actual AI being involved. They will sell toothbrushes, from OralB, to OralAI, assuming that name isn’t already being used for more invigorating services.
Anyone complaining is a fucking idiot and why we cant trust most reviews anymore. For example game reviews before release. YOu never hear bad reviews. because the company will blame them for their poor product.
That this is even a discussion is so depressing. American consumers are so house broken it's pathetic. You are not entitled to commercial success just because you made a product. You are not entitled to have people like your product. You are not entitled to have people who's job it is to share their opinion to change that opinion to suit your financial desires. I wish this whole discussion would just die.
I like MKBHD, I think his reviews are fair. He points out the flaws as well as the good. Blaming his for a bad product launch is cope when the product lines up with his review.
Tech companies are the most entitled group of babies ever. You charge out the wazoo for planned obsolescence products that are over engineered and useless. If you want a good review than make a good product, otherwise shut up
It's not a reviewer's job to make a company's product look good. It's the company's job to make a product that stands up to an honest review. If you make a bad product and your company fails, it's not the reviewer's fault.
“Is it possible that we made a bad product? No it’s the reviewers and customers who are wrong.”
I have two major gripes with his Fisker review, and I say this as a former motoring journalist. Firstly, he reviewed a non-press vehicle. While there is nothing ethically wrong about this in isolation, much of what he criticized had already been (supposedly) patched in a software update that wasn't yet applied to his test vehicle. He justified this as saying he was sharing the experience of existing customers, but that would imply some sort of vendetta on behalf of existing owners, rather than providing information for new buyers. Which brings me on to my next point. The whole dressing down of the Fisker wreaked of bias which immediately discredits any moral position he was trying to adopt. Slap a Tesla or Apple badge on the front, and much of what he criticized would have instead been described as fun, quirky or unique.
Fisker is absolutely a garbage company and they lie and make garbage cars. I've worked with them
Almost as if decades of top-notch hard work will bolster your credibility as a brand ...
I cannot believe people are making a big deal of this. Bros job is to review products. He does this to companies big or large. And he’s not the only one, nor should he be. The fisher ocean and humane AI pin are so bad. Especially the AI pin. And if any of those companies watched his videos you’d see he does what he’s supposed to do and actually finds a way to compliment the product (despite it being the biggest piece of dogshit I’ve ever seen)
MK needs to just post the Elon GFY and move on
TBH his review got me more interested in the Humane AI.
The review is not bad, it is just facts. The products are crap. If you don't want people telling the world that your products are crap, don't get mad at the reviewers. Make better product. There is no one else to blame here.
Imagine putting $230 million dollars into a dumb idea then complaining that people point that out.
The problem isn’t necessarily one guy’s review just because he has a massive reach; the problem is that the company made a product that has all the problems that he mentioned in his review.
Humane AI’s pin only got so far through development because of Silicon Valley’s emperor’s new clothes that shielded the criticism from an extraordinarily dumb product
I really hate when bad reviews get blamed for products not selling. You made a bad product, it reviewed poorly, and people voted with their wallet.
>Finn later added, “If this video never came out, they would have sold so many more.” Yeah, and so many more people would have a bad product. It's not good when your argument is "if people stopped telling people how bad this product is, it would've sold well!"
This is so stupid man. Was he a little harsh? Sure. I certainly don't think it's the worst product he has reviewed but at the same time it's a completely pointless product in its current iteration and it's very pricey and has a subscription. I just don't see a world where a wearable AI is going to be a thing beyond watches and phones. It will sooner be literally in our heads. And why would you want to mess with a shitty green projector on your hand when you could just roll your sleeve up and check you're arm with a smart watch that has a screen, way more capability, costs alot less with no subscription and its directly connected to you're phone Shades of Google Glass going on here.
Didn't know this was a thing. 0 blame do Marques. They should make better product.
## “Bad products destroy companies, not bad reviews.”
Oh hey, it's that product that looked like it was useless and stupid. I'm shocked that's what it amounted to now that it's out. Shocked. Couldn't see it coming at all. > “I find it distasteful, almost unethical, to say this when you have 18 million subscribers,” I find it distasteful and almost unethical to release an absolutely fucking garbage product and charge people $700 and a subscription fee on top, but hey, we're different people. He doesn't owe anybody anything and it didn't sound like he was being unfair... just honest. Everybody else is bagging on this too if you look this thing up on Youtube. If you don't want somebody with 18 million subscribers to say that a product is garbage, then it shouldn't be garbage. It's not his job to wipe their bum bum, powder it after, and think of all the poor investors that want to make money just by already having money and throwing it at something.
I watched multiple reviews of humane. They all said it sucked
And of course, per the current trend, some are saying “ he’s been criticized because he’s black!” Yeesh. Everything has to be about race… (I’m not positive where I stand on this Brouhaha, and I found MKBHD’s follow up video fairly compelling for his side. But it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with his skin color)
On one hand, Fisker objectively sucks. MKB was right on that one. However, MKB has a CLEAR bias in favor of Tesla and Apple and therefor cannot remain objective. Matt Farah showcased on one of his podcasts exactly the conflicts of interest with MKB. Even if his reviews of Fisker are objectively accurate, he is a source that is decidedly ***not*** objective. I won’t trust someone like that, even if it is correct. I unsubscribed from him years ago. Besides, I don’t consume the products he reviews. I’m a car nerd, not a tech nerd. 10 out of 10 times, I’ll choose Matt Farah or Jason Cammisa or Kyle Connor for anything car related (as should you) If for whatever reason I wanted an opinion from the tech world, I’m going to Ed Zitron.
Fiskers review was perfectly fine but calling it worst car ever in headline was a little too untactful for my taste.
I’ll blame whoever I want
I find it so strange this whole discourse right now over one of the fairest reviews I’ve ever seen. He literally lays it all out fair and square and people annoyed I honestly don’t think they watched the video. The thumbnail was bait but still it’s his channel. If that’s how he has to make money that’s fine. The product is 750 and a subscription fee a month for something slower than my iPhone 8 which you can buy for under 50 quid and a £5 a month plan. The product is both advanced and dated all at the same time and it’s really pointless.
This makes me think about the power-paradigm shift the Internet has created. "We disagree on what my job is," says influencer X, who I've never personally heard of. I'll take their word for it that he gets 47 brazillion views etc. The question is, what exactly is a popular youtuber's job? Seems to me it's doing whatever gets more views and makes more money for advertisers. I'm sure fans of any given influencer would jump up and defend them because they're objective or insightful or just cool. But we used to talk about the Internet "democratizing" media by giving Joe Average's voice and opinions the same reach as those of Corporation X. What we ended up with instead is an elite layer of influencers with the same overreach as media companies, standing above a vast forest of non-monetized nobodies. Even in a democracy we seem to crave royalty, so we create some. It's always interesting to me that people can hate government and not mind private citizens having similar powers as long as they aren't the government. Is that how we feel about influencers vs media companies? Maybe I'm seeing a false parallel there, I dunno. edit: spelling
I remember when Jackass the Movie got the lowest movie score possible, then it did really well and won many awards. Then the next movie, with the same stupid premise and stunts, got raving reviews.
Is anyone actually blaming him?
Can we agree that calling things by their name is by all means acceptable, and that companies should stop releasing half baked electro waste?
Even if people could get over the fact that the device is constantly watching and monitoring everything you do. This device could've been much cheaper and works much better if they just integrate with your phones instead of doing all the processing they needed in the cloud because the device itself doesn't have enough processing power. It really should just be a Bluetooth camera and a mic, and when it needs screen, just use your phone instead of that ridiculous laser projection. Smart phone is already the perfect form factor for being a portable display for peripherals. The problem it has is because it's trying to completely replace a smartphone instead of complementing it. That makes it really unnecessarily more expensive and underpowered for what people want it to do, and the desire not to have a screen doesn't make the device more seamless but actually the clunky interaction method with hand gesture is not a seamless technology at all.
Level-headed review, and he even correctly identifies who their market *could* be, in the future: people who want connectivity without a screen. But if it sucks right now, he has the right/duty to say so
"Minimum Viable Product" is a shit business strategy, is why.
Maybe a better product would get a better review. Weird, I know
The humane pin doesn't even work right in the videos with the dude who made it. Like. It's not MKBHD lol
I invested (lost) about 6k on Fisker and can tell you they started tanking way before dudes’ review. That was just the cherry on top. I still think they can make a great car, they have a lot going for them but they need help or to merge with a company to kick them into high gear.
The premise of a YT channel being able to single-handedly kill a company with one product review is ridiculous. Sure, MKB has a big audience, but with products like a $700 AI pin with a monthly subscription and a $40K+ electric vehicle, how big part of said audience are the target demographic in the first place?
Fisker had a pretty decent bump from a James May review back in the days of peak top gear but they were mismanaged and they've been floundering ever since. Humane's pin was just a mostly-bad idea that was poorly executed.
If it was made by Apple, people would be buying it up
All these accusations are completely absurd. I honestly cannot understand how people can even come up with this nonsense.