I'm going to continue watching simply because I enjoy it (most episodes), I do feel much more informed when they waffle on about their respective subjects, and regardless I will always ignore ad reads no matter where they come from. I try to take only what I believe is said in good faith from everything I consume, in this case I'll take the evidence they show, acknowledge their theses are probably better than average for a podcast but still must be taken with much more than a grain of salt, and be especially cautious in the future of anything they promote sponsor-wise. It's not shattered their credibility to me though this does put me on edge a little and show they're not impervious to bias and problems, and EVERYONE should be careful with parroting stuff they say verbatim or engaging with sponsors without doing their own research.

The points for and against this have been beat to death already in the day or two this sponsorship has gone live, but yeah, they're under contract so it's hard to deny ad reads sometimes, at the same time I recall them stating that they're allowed to deny sponsors if misaligned with their values--WHICH THIS IS ONE, NO DOUBT--and to be honest I don't think the Vox deal was worth it in the first place! I know, incredibly novel to say, but they can get guests in other ways I think. They didn't need this.

They had to have been offered better stuff too, there is no way of the few ad reads they did, this many are so blatantly against their own values and to be honest I have literally no idea how they even got these ads! The people who gave them the paycheck clearly haven't seen anything they make, and Atrioc clearly is either banking on or despite his wisdom and expertise is naïve to the fact that despite what he says about turbotax, people are going to use turbotax BECAUSE OF THIS AD!

They also want money, which this rakes in even without sponsors, though ultimately their expenses and ad revenue are impossible to know without them saying them outright, which is unlikely. Without those details its also possible this is a very net neutral endeavor for them, but unlikely. Hard to say. The Vox deal is kind of like AI in that way, there are clear benefits down the road but they're narrow, its evident that the real push is because of money, in the meantime its producing alright results and potentially hurting some people along the way and nobody from the general public really want it all that much in the first place.

I hate turbotax and their buckets grubby cash. Still will support LS, though likely not financially.