He is a youtuber who is widely known for his incredibly strong ethics. He started out making tech repair videos, advertising his repair business but the channel grew out into more general social commentary and updates on his activism.

It's a bit weird that someone could be famous for his strong ethics, but just watch some of his videos and you'll get it. The guy is relentless in both demanding ethics from others as reflecting on his own actions. It's really inspiring.

edit: If you want an example of this, here's a video where he apologizes for something he did, and in his apology he plays a recording of a conversation with his lawyer where his lawyer recommends to do the thing, and he relents, which he later regrets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGd_Ixy9Mzc You don't have to watch the whole thing, you'll see his character come through in the first minute of the video.

His videos about New York real estate were interesting/amusing/sad.

"Louis Rossman is an American independent repair technician, YouTuber, and right to repair activist." - Wikipedia

Man is getting bills voted on, how influential does one have to be to be an influencer?

He’s an activist. Influencers don’t actually accomplish anything or provide value, like the ceo of Reddit

The word you are looking for is "activist".

Before he was a right to repair activist, he was a complaining-about-Apple-making-life-difficult-for-independent-repairmen Youtuber, and before that, he was a showing people how he repairs computers Youtuber. He didn't just appear overnight to be an influencer.

He has had an Apple repair store for many years and is a prominent right to repair activist.

I think he runs a repair shop.

I'm not sure why his appeal to authority should matter for most people.

There are plenty of reasons to leave Reddit.

> I'm not sure why his appeal to authority should matter for most people.

The Right to Repair stuff gives him an interesting perspective on how big tech operates, which is relevant to the Reddit thing.

How does insight into phone construction and repairs extend to community management for big social networks?

He runs some very important initiatives around Right to Repair, which do indeed play into politics, business management etc.

And insights into API fees to get some of that sweet large language model funding?

The connection is about the different incentives between a tech company and its users — and the way a company will try to exert control against the users’ interests.

He found a video format that gets him views and attention.

I love him for the right to repair and his troubleshooting lives are interesting, but I've stopped watching most of his videos because the format of "dude films himself while reading an article " is really boring and a waste of time.

This is the first Louis Rossmann video I'd seen. I agree with a lot of what he's saying, but I don't like this format of delivery. Speaking rapidly, barely taking a breath, constant repetition. It makes my brain tired to listen to him, and I keep expecting to be offered a timeshare.

Because it's similar. He advocates against locked down hard- and software. Reddit is locking down the API.

Except they aren't locking it down like that, they just aren't doing it for free any more.

You can still have a 3rd party app, and it can still use the API. You just pay for it.

Right to repair is because you cannot buy a 3rd party screen, and you cannot use it. You have to have Apple/John Deere/etc do it.

> You can still have a 3rd party app, and it can still use the API. You just pay for it.

Yes, but can is not will.

The practical effect of this pricing will mean that almost all 3rd party apps for reddit will die, and Reddit won't get significant revenue from this change. Management knows all this, which means they are in fact trying to kill 3rd party apps, not salvage API operating costs.

If you want to speak about Reddit's changes in 'Right to Repair' terms, it's like Apple selling a replacement screen, but pricing it at $20,000.

He was given a huge megaphone because of his expertise in a certain field and now he thinks he has important insights about everything in the world. A story as old as time itself.

He has ~2m subscribers on Youtube, I think he would know a thing or two about moderating large communities.

He started out repairing Apple computers and complaining about it on YouTube and discovered a lucrative market of long form Apple hate videos. He makes one type of video, it's him sitting in his chair wearing a microphone talking about how whatever Apple recently did is terrible.

I perceive him very differently (despite being a 100% Apple guy for the past 30 years - the stuff he criticizes Apple for is justified in my opinion). He's done a lot of good for the world with his activism and work on Right to Repair.

Any company deserves to receive flak for badly designed(electrically and mechanically) products or making getting spare parts or needed information to repair them harder.

Specially the users should like that. It is making their products last much longer...

A dude with a lovely but hard to spot cat.