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Yeah, YouTube is absolutely dominated by paid product placement, especially for stuff like power tools. That said, YouTube reviews at least tend to be real in the sense that at least the reviewer is actually using and demonstrating the product, which is a huge step up from the "we summarized some Amazon reviews for you" SEO spam.

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They will “demo” the product for the half hour it takes to film the review, then they will ship it back or keep it themselves and not say a word if it falls apart three weeks later. This is still a marketing world. You want work. People only give you work if they feel theres a case for a return on investment, and they’d rather work with people who are liable to review that favorably than critically.

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