1) I don't claim Hodinkee is not passionate about watches, and are only driven by $$$. I believe they do good work, and are an undeniably important part of the horological media landscape. I personally believe a conflict of interest exists when a media company does both news/reviews and selling of the same product, because it creates a bias (even if subconscious) to portray the brands you sell better. But that wasn't my original point of discussion.
2) All I was wondering about was a possibility that when a watch blog collaborates with a company to do a limited edition, and can drum out significant publicity for the item THEY THEMSELVES will be selling, surely a temptation exists for people connected with that company to siphon off stock and "flip" it for an inflated price.
Given that the LE sold out in minutes, and the high number of those pieces found on eBay at 50% mark up, I posed the question, what are the odds there is some insider trading going on?
I am sure this is not limited to Hodinkee, but given their prominence in the horological landscape, one could argue, what they do is a bellwether for the rest of the digital space.
Again, I am not prosecuting a case here, all I am doing is asking a hypothetical.
HAGWE