[probablypower]

This is interesting, because I have the exact opposite response to these sorts of articles.

I think any bias or personal interest should be declared upfront in media (articles, videos, podcasts, ...) rather than appear as a 'common consumer' talking about a pain point in a relatable way. It really rubs me the wrong way when an article ends with a bait-and-switch, where you realise the entire article was manufactured to make you relate to their product's business case.

Obviously this method must resonate with people, like yourself, otherwise it wouldn't become so common. I guess I'm just the 'B' in the A/B testing that results in this type of marketing.

[xwowsersx]

I don't think there's any bait-n-switch unless you're unaware you're on fauna.com. Content marketing is well understood and at least in this case it isn't trash content someone spit out in 2 mins in order to lure you to their site. I don't see anything wrong with a company/product delivering value to you in the form of quality content and in exchange they are afforded an opportunity to run your eyes over their product offering.

[naasking]

> It really rubs me the wrong way when an article ends with a bait-and-switch, where you realise the entire article was manufactured to make you relate to their product's business case.

I'm not sure you have to take an adversarial interpretation of that tactic. If you don't find yourself agreeing with the setup, then you aren't a prospective customer, but if the article was informative to that point at least you now understand the existence of a domain that you're not aware of. Isn't that the point of reading technical articles? In the future, you might find yourself in that position after all.

[zzzeek]

agree, I have to look at the domain name, the title / sidebar , etc. to see up front, "OK this is yet another 'we think we have a better SQL' startup", then I skip the whole thing.

A site that's about "here's our product and why you might like it!" without getting into some "SQL, well you know, it has shortcomings" which is just unnecessary.

[austhrow743]

Why would your original assumption not be that the Fauna website exists to promote Fauna?