It didn't seem like they were turning a blind eye, they seemed to be very much biasing towards VCs/certain makers, in particular by controlling who could submit

It didn't seem like they were turning a blind eye, they seemed to be very much biasing towards VCs/certain makers, in particular by controlling who could submit things. They ended up with a leader board similar to Digg's in its heyday, where a few submitters controlled the outcome of the top entries. Unlike Digg, since this seemed to be from the top down, I think it actually helped Product Hunt rather than hurt it. Their curation seemed well done, at least to someone like me from the outside.