That is not the reality as I see it. They don’t hide the fact that it’s a sponsored video (marked as “sponsored video”) until the end of the video. They seems mindful to always disclose conflict of interest (everytime framework, the NAS company) and they stopped working with Anker publically and immediately when the eufy camera scandal broke. They seem to hold them selves to a high ethical standard and disclose information even though it paints them in a negative light (they admitted they knew honey was swapping advertiser links but they didn’t make it a big story)
Source: I watch around 2-3 LTT videos per week and around 50% of the WAN show podcast
I used to watch less because I couldn’t bring myself to click on the god-awful distasteful thumbnails but then I installed “dearrow” and sponsorblock and they are more than tolerable.
Yeah I thought there is no way it can work effectively and never tried it. I was wondering how they could afford so much advertising. I just expected to be bankrupt. I bet others thought that too. That the shadyness was only about investors.