[counterpoint1]

No, that's absolutely not how most people want their online communities to work.

Sneaky, indirect, hidden advertising is worse than regular ads or 'spam'. Regardless of if a community is about gardening or guitars or cooking or basketball, most people don't want shills posting content that's secretly sponsored product placement related to their hobby or promotion of the poster for fame or profit.

Most subreddits have rules specifically against this, because otherwise the real, organic, genuine conversation and content gets drowned out by self-promoting shills trying to drive clicks to their website or views to their youtube or get free advertising/PR for their company. You're supposed to participate out of a genuine interest in the community, not to exploit them as an audience for making money.

[OnlyFriendsThwy]

I don't think you're responding the kind of activity I was defending. I'm not referring to product placement or submissions or comments that actively advocate their OF page. I'm referring to submitting rabbit pictures to /r/rabbits with the same profile as you OF identity.

I agree with you about the product placement stuff, and I despise the submarine shills. But that's the thing: that's rejecting the submission -- and banning the user -- on their content having failed to meet the forums standards, not simply the fact of their profile linking their OF, as the OP was referring to. That's a whole different league from "hey, here are some cool rabbits" and oh, if you look at their profile, you can find their OF page. (The OF friend in question was immediately banned for having a reddit account whose profile links OF even despite the mod accepting that it's otherwise a valid submission.)

I'm make the same challenge to you that the other respondent ignored: how should people ethically self-promote, if not that?