While at work over the past few days, I’ve had TC Disrupt on in the background while squashing bugs and making magic. While I’ve never attended, it’s obvious there’s a spectre over the whole event. Arringbrisket was forced out over a severe conflict of interest between writing about the companies he and others were investing in, claiming it’s “not an issue”. What we are seeing right now at TC Disrupt is exactly what you get when your business interests are aligned with your editorial interests: crappy editorial.

TC Disrupt is so bad this year I feel frustrated and anxious just listening to the live stream. It comes down to the fact that to present at Disrupt, you must pay TechCrunch a fee. Let’s let that sink in: to present at Disrupt, you must pay TechCrunch a fee. (Unless you win the Hackathon or something like that.) So for a property that has been more-or-less good over the past few years, what does that do to you? It forces you to write fluff pieces for the worst ideas, because those ideas belong to customers.

Take, for example, Shaker that presented yesterday at Disrupt. Their idea is is terrible. Somehow, they got a glowing review from MG Siegler, ostensibly the best writer at TC these days with a great reputation and a track record for being right. It’s obvious Shaker wasn’t built at the Hackathon and their post on TC reads like a press release. Their presentation was so bad and so over-the-top in all of the wrong ways you can be wrong. Yet somehow all criticism was withheld by someone who’s got a decent BS radar. It’s because Shaker is not just a company, it is a customer.

And that’s where it all begins to break down. Although Arringbrisket is gone, TC Disrupt is a manifestation of all of his ideas. You can’t honestly claim that investing in the companies you report in is good for your reporting. It eventually becomes obvious you’re just a very expensive Who’s Who Among High School Students. The teams that care about building great products and not over-marketing them will refuse to shell out the $3,000 for this flimsy exposure. (Although hey, $3,000 is pretty cheap for a positive review on TechCrunch.) I thought for a second that LayerVault could be a good entry for Disrupt. Allan brought me back down to Earth because we care about—you know—building a solid product and making customers happy.

The next person that offers to write about you and invest in you, walk away. Request they don’t write about you. Don’t be a sucker.

Don’t let them steal your lunch money.

Edit: I have since been corrected by the TechCrunch staff. To present on stage is $0, you just have to make it through the vetting process. To attend costs $3k, although admitted teams get two free tickets. Startups can pay $2k to present on some other stage/track, of which Shaker was not a part of.

Edit 2: Arringbrisket disclosed on 9/14/11 that he is indeed an investor of Shaker, a few hours before Shaker won Disrupt.