That's an interesting development. I was under the impression that outside of larger retailers, affiliate codes weren't as common.
I'm curious then why did techgearlab not choose to review the matic which is certainly a new interesting player in the robot vaccuum game. I'll have to reach out!
For the minority of products that are only sold directly by the manufacturer (which includes Matic), yes, I think it would be very unusual not to have an affiliate program. Matic even has a crappy one for consumers. For one thing, YouTubers, who keep absolutely no distance between business and editorial, aren’t gonna talk about your product unless they can put an affiliate link in the description. Sometimes manufacturers will use something like Impact, other times a publisher will need to reach out directly.