[oaiey]

When you join the MVP program you are an evangelist. You are briefed, you are under NDA and you start to have a very different view that the broader community. Not every MVP is like that, but while I like the content they create I see them seriously disconnected from many .NET developers and actual use cases.

[oneepic]

This. I shouldn't have said MVPs aren't passionate engineers. But I do feel a significant side of their content is just marketing.

[ksm]

I think that is because product teams at Microsoft more or less expect MVPs to function as evangelist of the things they want to communicate marketing-wise. Originally the program started as recognizing community leaders/technical experts in specific MS technologies, but I feel things got hijacked somewhat along the way. Teams see MVPs as credible voices towards their audience so naturally the tempatation to use them as marketing voice is there.

Add to that the fact that MVPs themselves are passionate about those MS technologies so they for most part do want to repeat marketing line.

I used to be MS MVP, not for developer tech but for it pro side of things, and definitely saw these ”asks” in the messaging the product team did towards us from time to time.