[pharrlax]

>that companies, corporations, organisations use it to market and advertise themselves, for free.

Another phenomenon I've been seeing more of is a company that gets in early to a niche gaining control of the subreddit around that niche, tilting the scales in their favor.

Two examples I can think of are /r/nootropics, whose mod team is led by the owner of nootropics supplier Ceretropic, and /r/amazonmerch, whose sole mod is the owner of MerchInformer, a SaaS Amazon Merch research product.

They're each careful to never moderate in an overtly heavy-handed way that would cause a user revolt, but nonetheless, their companies are mentioned in the each subreddit far more often than their competitors. It's an inherent conflict of interest, and one that will only worsen as these niches grow in popularity.

[NoahTheDuke]

Video game subreddits have this happen a lot. A new game will hit the market, and the company will already have set up a subreddit with all of their staff in control. It's an "official" subreddit, but that means it's no better than any other official forums and lacks any ability to hold counter opinions.