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Reddit is definitely being gamed, started 1-2 years ago. And it's a lot harder / impossible to identify fake recommendations, so I'm very suspicious of it.

Not saying it is, but, how would you know it isn't?

I imagine that either "they" (the advertisers/companies) have either already figured this out and are learning how to leave grassroots-looking comments, or they will pretty soon.

I think it's more the bot upvoting comments that happen to be favorable to your product than actually leaving fake comments.

I don’t know for sure, and I bet some of it is gamed (all the popular AMA type and celebrity worship or marketing crap sure is), but I think I’ve been able to glean some real comments in the niche sections, based on the history of people giving recommendations or multiple threads over the years with similar conclusions.

Reddit is certainly gamed. Not on everything, not as widespread as SEO, but I've definitely seen it before.