[shurane]

Doesn't trust factor into this? I have friends that I would trust with asking for fitness related information/suggestions. I may end up doing more research on my own, but I trust those friends to leave out doing a lot of the work myself, even if their agendas don't align with my own.

And when I don't have friends to ask about a particular subject, I might end up going to an online community like HN or a subreddit to ask individuals or groups of individuals those questions.

I tend to trust people who don't have a profit motive more than I do a big company which has an incentive on pushing their product.