It's not about sponsorships and integrity, it's about preventing the pipeline "Person reads article -> Sees this brand of vape has micocontrollers -> Buys this brand of vape".
(If I understood the author correctly, y'know, not to speak for them)
don't worry about speaking for the author. I want to gather as many explanations of this as possible because none of them seem to be consistent and make much sense. I feel like people do this because others do it too without much questioning.
With your example, why would the author care whether some random person buys the vape he mentioned in his article? I don't see the point
Contributing to people buying stuff that's bad for them, and giving money to an industry that profits off it, presumably? Again, I'm just assuming the author's position(which, for the record I do not share) here.
(If I understood the author correctly, y'know, not to speak for them)