I think this is a bad thing for a number of reasons.
- If the announcer doesn't have enough belief in his product to monitor his replies, then he is unlikely to support the product, and we should ignore it.
Similarly if the announcer doesn't have enough interest in the forum to become an active member, why should we consider his product.
If the thread doesn't get any active replies or comments, then it is unlikely to be of benefit to the members here, so it should be allowed to drop, and leave space for better quality products.
The forum has paid advertising slots, please use those instead of trying to inflict marginal products on the members here without paying for the advertising.
Unfortunately, there are always drawbacks to everything. But, I'll give an example where automatic bumping/posting is useful in the social media world. Certain times are better to post than others depending on your niche, and sometimes you might have other commitments around this time. After market research you might have determined that 1pm is the best to post because people start their lunch break. However, your work starts an hour early, and you don't get the time to post. Its the same thing here in that automatic bumps around less busy times so it doesn't get buried on the forum can actually bring in a little more business, at least I think my logic is sound there without having trying it myself. As long as it doesn't break the limit rate theymos has implemented, and the 24 hour bump rule I think its fine. Although, old bumps should ideally be deleted.