Slightly amusing, but this parody of The Atlantic's sponsored Scientology debacle doesn't really add much to the conversation. The one thing it parodies correct

Slightly amusing, but this parody of The Atlantic's sponsored Scientology debacle doesn't really add much to the conversation. The one thing it parodies correctly is "Hey look, we too can publish things that aren't up to our normal editorial standards!" However, this piece blatantly makes up facts (i.e. Instagram & Epicurious opening offices), whereas the Scientology piece was opinionated and disagreeable, but not factually wrong. In fact, countries have a long history of advertising in magazines under sponsored content. Items like "Come visit XXX" are a staple amongst travel and lifestyle magazines, though such pieces are usually differentiated via different fonts and layouts. If techcrunch had somethign to add, I wish they had actually argued their point instead of hopping on the "Look, Controversy! Let's ridicule it!" train.