I found this pretty sad. The hobby thrives because of people like Martin who invest a lot of time and money to cover news and share the hobby out of a passion. Nate on his pinball podcast also mentioned Stern was 'displeased' with his own comments about the same thing.

In both cases anything perceptively negative about the price that Stern felt they could muscle out of the 'social news stream' by trying to squash those opinions has only made them look much worse. Perhaps Putin or Kim Jun are now investors in Stern giving direction on how to squash negative opinion. For all of those types of hobbyist have done and do to make the hobby grow to be ignored and stepped on is very offensive to me.

In my opinion, it shows that Stern isn't as confident as it wants to appear, so instead felt they needed to bully their way into a positive 'impression' with any means possible. A sign that the competition in they hobby is putting pressure on them in very negative ways, seems almost desperate to be punitive for those kinds of reasons.