However, in this case it was technically helpful content and sharing a frustrating story. It was one paragraph that was easy to ignore. There was no popup or call to action past that simple paragraph. As far as native advertising, this is as benign as it gets.
The concept is terrible, whether it was done "as benign as it gets" or not. The idea that this kind of bullshit content (that's obviously only written to be a marketing channel) is accepted as normal is exactly why it's a problem. Your comments only highlights it even more.