I'm not suprised Raycast is involved in this marketing scheme. They pollute their own product with ads where they shouldn't be. Whoever is running their marketing team needs a lesson in not pissing off your userbase.

Sometimes I see something nifty in Raycast and it tempts me. Then I see something weird from them, look in the Alfred manual, and realize it already supports the same feature and that I’ll stay put, thanks.

Someone, claiming to be from the Raycast team, in the original HN thread said that they were not aware of the advert or were involved with it in any manner.