To an extent I can't but agree. I can't help but speculate you are in the media placement game, though? :D

Like, I get that you can't measure everything. There are plenty of reasons to believe that.

I just can't bring myself to accept the odd logic that "popular tech company got press coverage which was instrumental in their growth." Seems there is a circular logic at play there that makes this such that, even if it is true, it is not actionable for anyone else.

Put another way, popular things get press coverage by virtue of them being popular things. At large, as long as they don't implode in very terrible coverage, they don't have to do much to get more coverage. Just doing anything will do that for them. To that end, odds are high we would still have discussed this even if they only offered something silly like a lifetime subscription for the winning team.