There's also a terrible self-fulfilling cycle where the the content producers will solicit their testimonials from those that will undoubtedly speak highly abou

There's also a terrible self-fulfilling cycle where the the content producers will solicit their testimonials from those that will undoubtedly speak highly about the content regardless of its quality, under the quid pro quo of getting it free. I suppose this is not limited to the internet marketing genre, but I've found from my own experience, this is common. Small anecdote: I was once asked to review an ebook in the internet marketing space based on some things I was doing at the time. The "author" had created an ebook that consisted of clipart, default Microsoft Word formatting, and egregious spacing to pump up the page count. The "author" was furious when my review was neutral rather than glowing.