To be honest... expect always more platforms doing that. It is a valid growthhack to draw attention to their platform.

And ona decentralized blockchain, which aims to power hundreds, thousands of dApps everyone will vie to attract users from that same “common userbase” which is one of the main assets the Steem blockchain has for appbuilders.

The smartest platforms will listen to their own communities and decide on whether they strip those “billboards” out or not. But end of the day the goal of all will be to grow their userbase and that requires first attracting attention to it.

I only wish the Partiko reasoning would be more honest and less fake in it. Both reasons provided are wrong.