Marques Brownlee says ‘I hear you’ after fans criticize his new wallpaper app

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/24/24253023/mkbhd-panels-wallpaper-app-response-criticism

39 Comments

  1. The app asks for unreal tracking data. It asks for always on location data and to track you across apps and websites. Marques, obviously didn’t program it, but whoever did I can’t see Marques not understanding or not approving this gross breach of privacy when it’s his name on the product.

  2. Oh wow, that is such an utter failure of a project from their website to their app. Rarely see even games use as much of my CPU as just scrolling their website haha

  3. There’s something kind of hilarious about someone who drags design for a living and releases a design catastrophe himself. And I say this as a long time fan.

  4. Everyone protecting him or saying he didn’t know is delusional. Even though he has enough money, he just wanted more and is now backtracking because he got busted. Glad I’m not following his “reviews”.

  5. I dont want to tell the dude to stay in your lane, but sneakers and a wallpaper app are not the ideal lanes to jump on.

  6. Someone make a review video and name it “worst app I have ever reviewed”

    Don’t miss this opportunity.

    For someone who made a living trashing other people’s way more complex pieces of work, this guy is learning how difficult it is it actually build something. Even as simple as a wall paper app.

  7. A Youtuber launches controversial overpriced product. Is this really a surprise/news at this point?

  8. ptsdstillinmymind on

    Look another grifter influencer, I hate these people and this culture. I don’t get these parasocial relationships. These people don’t care about any of you. They are here to exploit that connection to enrich themselves.

  9. Is this shit truly a 50 buck iphone wallpaper app? What kind of weirdo give that much of a shit about phone wallpaper? I’m still using the Samsung s21 background it came on first launch.

  10. Sd wallpapers for free with ads and $12 a month for full quality. What a shit proposition. Can’t believe he put his name on this.

  11. My man finally graduated from Apple school of pricing shit, $50 subscription for a wallpaper app is criminal, lmao.

  12. Considering his profession the “I hear you” comment wasnt a good choice.

    Thats what every tech company says when they get called out but don’t want to actually fix shit.

  13. I only recently discovered him, but I was pretty squicked out by his gushing Cybertruck review. Unsubscribed. 

  14. I don’t get it. If you think it’s too expensive and/or privacy concerns then ah… don’t use the app? This reads like “business seeks to maximize profits,” which… yeah obviously? I’m clearly not the audience for this app anyway, I had no idea people pay for phone backgrounds, but I don’t get how this is a newsworthy story.

  15. It’s 2024, who the fuck is going to pay $12 a month for a wallpaper app? This is some dumb shit and it deserves to fail.

  16. Mediocre_Ad3496 on

    I just saw this mentioned in his iphone 16 review last night. Enjoying the commentary.

    I was a little leary just on concept and presentation. Now, I am even more interested in the concept failure. Lots of interesting points are being brought up. I have issues with celebrities’ name slapping on products to make money. Also, crossing the line from the reviewer to reviewed and the inherent conflicts in the great quest known as the money grab.

  17. TheOneWithThePorn12 on

    I’m still using Backdrops which is free with ads and hilariously I first learned about it through MKBHD.

  18. And just by coincidence, he launched it and announced it on his iPhone review video, the video which usually has the highest view count.

  19. Imagine building this stellar and nearly impeccable reputation in the technology industry. Imagine literally being able to take down whole companies with a single video, wiping out billions of dollars in valuation in under 20 minutes. And imagine deciding to leverage the immense credit you’ve built amongst tech insiders and the general public to hawk a crappy wallpaper app. A thing literally nobody needs and nobody has asked for, *especially* when you can go on ChatGPT or Gemini and get practically any wallpaper you can imagine in an instant. A thing that has thousands, maybe tens of thousands of perfectly fine to completely crappy competitors in the app stores just churning along making pennies because (and again, I cannot stress this enough), this is a thing literally nobody needs.

    What is it with popular YouTubers deciding to utterly tank themselves in the most spectacular of fashions lately?

  20. areyouentirelysure on

    It’s a fucking free market. Nothing forces “fans” to install his app. This is stupid.

  21. BRB – Gonna create a ring tone app, $25 bucks year. But dont worry, their will be an ad supported tier. Every once in a while it will play an ad in place of the ring tone.

  22. On a long enough timeline, all heroes become the villain. I like his takes, but he has systematically killed so many ideas from BIG companies.

    Why did he think releasing a pet project from a beginner software enigeer in 1996 would impress people?

    I can only guess.