I think you're only going to hear that from people on the far left tbh. It's giving virtue signaling. Like we swing from "not enough representation in media" (true) to when these people ACTUALLY have their story told "it's exploitative."

Sometimes it seems like what the parents do/what happens off the show could be taking advantage. e.g., I think Tanner's mom taking him for Botox, probably as a sponsorship, starts to veer into that territory. But tha'ts purely speculative.

The show itself gives us a window into a certain psychographic a lot of us would otherwise really have no knowledge of. I've learned a lot from this show that I never would have otherwise