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Recommending a product you haven't reviewed is a form of lying. Some of us value our integrity.

Isn’t this true of all advertising, except in the rare cases where the publisher only accepts ads for products they endorsed?

How can we ever expect a reliable, non-garbage-dominate internet when it is funded by perverse incentives?

The distinction is that if I see a billboard (or magazine ad, or TV commercial) advertising a product I don't think that I have a relationship with the billboard and they know me pretty well and have my best interests at heart... so I don't think that if this particular billboard that knows me so well is promoting a product to me then it must be a pretty good product for me (especially because this billboard doesn't usually go out of their way to recommend products to me).

But if a friend of mine recommends a product to me, well, I do think all of those things.

Literally, nobody said to do that. Good lord, are you aware of nuance? You can make people aware of something that looks promising, without lying.

> You have a warped perspective of importance if you think giving the nod to a new mail app is some holy thing.

You're taking a needlessly confrontational stance here with insulting language, and people are responding to that.

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