A PR stunt until they feel things have blown over and they’ll ramp right back up.

It's less of a stunt and more of human nature. They messed up, they realize it, they put controls in place to prevent similar errors, they get into a groove, they loosen the rules to streamline the process, they mess up, they realize it, ....

This is how every single entity in every single production industry works. Financial markets? Obviously. Food Safety? Of course. Buildings and bridges? Uh, yeah. Security? In the news all the time. Submersible adventures to the Titanic? LOL. It is an exceptionally rare condition where an error and a reaction leads to a permanent chance in procedure (though they do exist).

I started boycotting LTT when he had his shit take about blocking ads being essentially stealing.

Well I sure don't steal Linus anymore that's for sure.

And I would be stealing Linus for sure considering the absolutely crazy amount of ads there is on this channel.

Ever watched a WAN Show without any AdBlock or sponsor block ? That's like 40% of the duration of the video if I include the LTT shop.

It's by far the channel on YT that I watched that pushes the most ads/sponsors. And I'm not even accounting for the YT ads themselves.

Fuck LTT seriously, he can push as much ads as possible AND on top of that you have to watch all of them religiously.

If that's the price for his content, not worth it for me.

I'm just a passive observer who's watched maybe a few dozen LTT videos ever, but this here was also my take away and always has been with this organization. I don't know how big this company is but they're clearly at a level where they, as a company, are mostly in it for the money. For me as an outsider, LTT is becoming more well known for the problems it has more so than the service it provides.

This blatant plug to ask people for money in what should be a somber apology video is arrogant and obscene. They're acting as if they're all-powerful and infallible in a video explaining their failures.

It strikes me that they're putting themselves in a position to rectify foundational disorganization because they're more concerned about revenue than they are fulfilling their promise to to their audience - robust testing and reviews / critique that can consumers can trust without hesitance.

Asking people to buy things should not at all cross your mind in the production of this video.

With that said, if they are the mega-org that I presume they are, it's their prerogative to be concerned about revenue more than anything else. As a consumer, I don't find revenue-centric organizations among the top of entities I would deem trust-worthy.

I don't see anything wrong with that, and chances are they all are. It takes a good speaker to do it without making it feel artificial, but if you're a big enough company you have marketing, legal and corporate vet all external announcements first, even for videos such as this. That's just an entirely normal part of the process.