[quote name='gettinmoney662']Hey genius, do you think companies run contests out of the goodness of their hearts? They always get something out of it.[/QUOTE]
Yes, obviously. Contests/sweepstakes are meant to be for advertising -- getting the name or product out there. But ultimately it's the consumer's choice whether or not to purchase/invest in the product. There's not much (if any) direct profit made from the contest itself.
You might argue that they're advertising for a service offered, i.e. news. But how many people are actually reading the articles? By sheer luck, there should be at least some interesting articles out there, and a few people are reading them; but I doubt most are. So some author out there is artificially inflating their numbers by offering no real substance to the world, other than an elusive freebie or two. And I say "their" numbers because if you'll notice, all these code hunt "contests" are only for the articles by the same author.
Everyone hates banner ads slapped across some random website, but when "contests" like this are in the form of a CAG thread, suddenly people want to invest some of their time.
BUT anyway, wow, I'll get off my soap box. Didn't expect to argue that much

I'm sure some of you think I'm a dumbass, but I would like to hope a few of you even slightly agree with me that these threads are a tad underhanded. To each his own.
EDIT: Oh yeah, and to the other guy who commented about those "vote for me" threads: Yeah, they bother me too. You see them every now and then, but at least they're not from the same people/group every time. I thought the same of these Examiner threads when they first started to show up, but except this time, they just kept coming. Hence my wording of "spam" in my other post.