Not approving of any corporate behaviours here, but extracting the maximum price a market will bear has been the basis of pricing and supply/demand since such concepts existed which is at least 250 years.
I'm surprised they think this is useful... if I've paused a video it's because I'm answering the phone or front door, making a coffee, going for a shit etc... I'm almost never going to see these ads 🤷🏻♂️
SBM is run by Dr Stephen Novella aka Skeptics Guide to the Universe, these guys are some of the most vocal (and knowledgeable) pro-science anti-quack science communicators around... if there's BS antivacc nonsense floating around, they'll call it out and rip it apart.
Can highly recommend their podcast (the aforementioned Skeptics Guide to the Universe) as well!
Thing is how do you differentiate between a bunch of people who genuinely like a product and are happy to say so because it's solved a problem for them that they see other people having, and "subtle spam"?
For instance, I'm a Kagi subscriber and have been for some months now as it's doing a good job for me, and I've had the odd person leap down my throat accusing me of being a corporate shill etc, and I am absolutely not (but that's what a shill would say!!!)
How does anyone get a product recommendation from a product that's genuinely growing in popularity so people are recommending it? I get there needs to be a healthy dose of cynicism but where does the line get drawn to the point where that cynicism is no longer "healthy" and simply means everyone distrusts everything that's made by a company if somebody on the internet says it's good?
Where's the equal cynicism when somebody says something is shit and it could be a corporate shill from a competitor?
