For how easy it is to mock Linus Sebastian (to the point where monetizing his roast is an actually good business decision), there’s constant reminders that not everyone can do what he’s done. It takes a lot of resilience, skill and yes, luck, to turn what started as a side project to his normal job into an successful business. And although his curated online personality tried really hard to hide this fact, it’s sobering to note the moments where it shines.
For example, their recent hack.
It’s easy to forget that for all of the growth that a company experiences, there’s still normal, fallible people doing the work. So when LTT got hacked, it wasn’t that much of a surprise. Especially because anyone who has been around YouTube for the last couple of months could recognize what happened the second the channel started peddling crypto scams. Everything from animation channels to more niche specialist ones has gotten loaded sponsor offers ready to hijack your session token. It’s just that now it finally happened to someone where they had a shot at getting a prompt response from YouTube.
Naturally, they have come out stronger at the other side, with additional subscribers to their streaming platform Floatplane, the affected channels completely restored, and a sponsored video about their experience so that a terrible crisis doesn’t go unmonetized. The fact that no firings are forthcoming for the responsible employee is the icing on the cake.
The cherry would be for YouTube to do something about it.
On said sponsored debrief video, on which Chief editor Dennis Liao had to use a novel editing technique to be spared having to edit naked footage of his boss…again…the enforcement of stronger verification methods in case major changes are done to the site is highlighted as a relatively straightforward actionable item. Most YouTubers would be lucky to have the reaction to that suggestion be a noncommittal “we’ll look into it”. But with LMG being such a high-profile breach, the reaction is more akin to a small firecracker blowing up at their feet. At the very least it has to be acknowledged.
It’s very unlikely that these scams will stop. It’s simply far too lucrative to change some rando channel name to TESLA, get a recorded bullshit stream and convince some of the poor schmucks left holding the crypto bag to send their coin hoping for a 100% ROI (If this is not a red flag for you, boy do I have a real estate opportunity you can get into.). However, with just some tweaks to add confirmations to serious changes, like changing the channel name and batch deleting videos, the damage can be severely limited. Not to mention that it would make these scams easier to reveal as scams. You are LTT for 10 years and suddenly Elon is doing a livestream on your channel? Pretty suspicious if you ask me.
The people who use their YouTube Channels for their livelihood are very unlikely to complain about these changes. The ones that have an account because they needed one won’t be missing much.
