It’s really disingenuous to mud sling people with a different view by implying they themselves don’t exist/are astroturfing/are bots.
I’m a real human who decided to use their service for kicks and actually like some of the benefits and control over the results compared to other search engines.
Especially when I’m doing research, which is usually half of all my time searching anyways.
Enough that I decided to pay for the service. I’m happy with it and want to share that happiness with others. Are you saying that because I liked a service that I can’t seem to get anywhere else I’m now the bad guy? Because I like something and want to share it with others, that’s bad?
Is the alternative that you might prefer to be corporate astroturfing instead of organic discussion and growth? Like, really, seriously, what’s the alternative here if people talking about and sharing something they like is not acceptable?