We have a history on this forum of sniffing out hackers, shills, undeclared beta testers, etc.; who in the past have attempted to shape the opinions of forum members without fully revealing their incentives, monetary or otherwise, for providing "reviews" or opinions of products. I don`t want to go into everything, but this ranged from people who were purposefully trying to deceive us, to others who simply didn`t see their relationship as a beta tester as possibly biasing their views, or at least calling into question their impartiality.

From the beginning of the YouTube era, I have cautioned people about swallowing whole the reviews/opinions from there. It takes a long time, and equipment and software, to make a decent video, and while I`m sure for some people it`s an enjoyable hobby and they have no secondary or ulterior motives, reasonable people have to sometimes ask "what`s in it for them to do this?". In the past, when I have suggested that people make money from YouTube when they reach a critical mass of subscribers/views, I`ve been rebuffed and told that these people`s income from YouTube is so small as to in no way bias their opinions.

In conjunction with my Idrosave thread ( Idrosave ), I noticed that two prominent YouTubers (not that I really spend much time watching detailing videos, so I may be wrong that they are "prominent"), in their Idrosave reviews, offered discount codes specific to them. To me this says they are getting some sort of kickback from Labocosmetica, whether that is an actual monetary kickback in the form of free product or discounts on product, or if it`s simply a reputational kickback that they get to beta test or get product to test prior to it becoming available to the public, which likely translates into a monetary kickback if that increases viewership of their YouTube channel.

If Labocosmetica was simply using a discount to promote a new product, why wouldn`t it be in their email that some members got, or on their website? Why would each of these YouTubers have their own discount code corresponding to the initials of their channel? Obviously Labo wants to know who is doing a better job selling their products, or they both would be using the same discount code.

So what is everyone`s opinion on how much marketing we are ingesting by watching ostensibly "self-help" videos?