The OP used to work for me. He was a massive fan of Sanity before he went to work for them. I think that in part that is why he went to work for them. Knowing him, I am sure that he was was not consciously doing any product placement, rather showing what he genuinely feels about the product and heading off any conflict of interest concerns others might have.
As to the practice of product placement in blog posts. This is HUGE and the way that many bloggers make their living (although less so in dev). Affiliate marketing (getting paid for links to products & services) makes up around 10% of e-commerce transactions. It's been around for a long time and is likely to continue to grow as it's one of the few directly attributable sales channels (not without its issues however).
I'm fine with people monetizing their content, especially if it's useful and ad free. What is less comfortable is where people don't make it clear that they get paid for it.
As to the practice of product placement in blog posts. This is HUGE and the way that many bloggers make their living (although less so in dev). Affiliate marketing (getting paid for links to products & services) makes up around 10% of e-commerce transactions. It's been around for a long time and is likely to continue to grow as it's one of the few directly attributable sales channels (not without its issues however).
I'm fine with people monetizing their content, especially if it's useful and ad free. What is less comfortable is where people don't make it clear that they get paid for it.