If someone reads the reddit post and decides to buy the Sriracha competitor then who has been ripped off? It's a win-win, competitor has gotten business and the customer has bought a product they now perceive to be superior.
People should probably be more aware that the social media they use is astroturfed to hell and back but marketing and advertising is far too demonized.
The "customers" I speak of here are the people finding my antisocial content on reddit and deciding to enter into long term business relationships.
I don't get paid to sell bottles of sriracha, but the fundamentals of doing so on reddit are basically the same whether you're selling expensive services or sriracha. The only difference is the content.
Fake endorsements of a product is not what most people mean by "selling".
Like I get it, you are fine with what you are doing. Whatever. But you are being dishonest with people, maybe in a way that you see as small, and that sucks.