Recipes have vetted and semi-officially published by employee editors for a long time. Probably since Tim Hunt left the company

The company deliberately started disguising ads as content a decade ago, and soon after upped the ads-to-content ratio. Revenue was declining and their solution was to show more ads and to make them more annoying.

The 30% federal tax credit does apply to leased systems. It's just that the leasing company gets the credit "on your behalf" (also known as keeping it for themselves) but includes it in the calculation of how much to charge you as the lease payment.