I hadn't read this submarine article before. This just blew my mind. I've got so many ideas for promoting my side business now.
The content farms (and Wikipedia) are modern day version of the print publications.
Wouldn't it be ironic if pg was paid by a PR firm to write this piece? :D
On an aside, Paul Graham clearly saw influencer marketing coming in his final paragraph.
The essay is from 2005. Internet marketers were seeing that trend in the run up to the dot com bubble. And porn sites were seeing it even earlier. (Internet marketers were learning from the latter at the time.)