[nucleogenesis]

For me it’s just that I just don’t want to lie to make money.

Commercials are on their face a work of fiction unless stated otherwise — for customer testimonials in commercials that are fake (in the US anyway) there has to be text saying as much. Because otherwise they’d be lying…

[an0malous]

The sad reality is that many others have no such qualms and you will lose to them in a competition, many of the largest YC companies used deceptive practices to get to their level of success

[gyomu]

I don't see any lies in the screenshots from the original article being discussed here.

They are a staged conversation with a contact named "Speedometer FAQ" - not pretending like it's with a real person, or real customer testimonials.

If it makes you feel better, you could put "simulated text messages" at the bottom of such images.

[an0malous]

“Technically you could figure out I was lying” is a great haven for liars. The whole reason this strategy works is because there are many people who won’t notice that contact name and assume it’s a real conversation, otherwise they wouldn’t have used the chat format.

It’s like saying “it’s ok to call the car ‘full self driving’ because one could figure out it’s not really full self driving.” But obviously, not everyone will realize that and you’re benefitting from the deception otherwise you wouldn’t have done it.