[rscho]

Well, that's precisely the crux of the matter. When I go to conferences, I also only get a measly ballpen with a notebook if I'm lucky. Corporate financing is mostly targeting established researchers who, crucially, hold influence over their peers. It's just like YouTube influencers. So the question is not what we get at the conference, but what arrangements are made for the funding of future projects for those researchers. And conferences are great locations for interfacing well-known researchers with industry representatives. That also happens elsewhere, of course.

[sarchertech]

Again this is a different thing than “doctors go to conferences and get free hotels and gifts”. If you think researchers (the majority of whom aren’t doctors) might make shady deals with industry reps at conferences, I don’t have any evidence they don’t I guess. I don’t have evidence that industry reps don’t just call them on the phone and offer bribes either.