No. Nobody pays for a verdict here. Some posts use affiliate links, and those are labeled where they appear, but the rating never moves because a link exists. If a tool is mediocre I say so, affiliate or not.

Long enough to hit the annoying parts. For software that usually means a few weeks of real work, not a demo afternoon. For hardware it is however long it takes to break my routine and form an honest opinion. If I only tried it briefly, the post says that up front.

Because the through-line is the voice, not the category. This is me reviewing things I actually use and care about. Narrowing it to one niche would make it a content farm, and there are enough of those already.

You can offer. I read everything and reply to almost nothing, which is not personal. I only write about things I would have paid for myself, so a free unit buys a look, never a rating.

When it matters, yes. A pricing change or a feature that fixes my main complaint gets a dated note at the top of the post. I do not silently rewrite history, so you can see what changed and when.