> As far as I could tell, the sponsors had zero additional asks. They paid money in exchange for the pre-determined advertising package to have their logo print

> As far as I could tell, the sponsors had zero additional asks. They paid money in exchange for the pre-determined advertising package to have their logo printed everywhere. At a certain level they got a booth where they could hand out swag and recruit. They didn’t direct the conference itself, though. Maybe it’s different at the mega-conferences, but locally there was no indication that the sponsors were trying to capture the conference And that’s exactly right. This is needlessly alarmist. A lot of accusations without any kind of macro analysis on what consequences this all has. It and also further doesn’t provide context of this versus government funding in academia, along with reasonable alternatives. It also doesn’t recognize the growth these fields have had, and how the landscape has changed with the scale.