@kileyay, Yeah, I agree completely. I really like how DCRainmaker makes it super clear that he's not taking money from a company and that his reviews are 100% his own. I did ask Taren about his trip to California to visit Tower 26 and it turns out that he paid for all of it himself. He mentioned that he tries to make it very clear when things are sponsored and I actually believe him.

As for my channel, I'm not really getting a lot of sponsorship offers coming my way. I do consulting work for Nike, so people will probably see me wearing swooshy stuff within videos. Seems like affiliate marketing is reasonable as long as it's just passing along links with an honest review. Hopefully Taren can find a way to make money so that he can continue to make triathlon related videos and doesn't have to switch over to making videos about cats.

Ventum . . . well, I'm not sure about that one ;)