So I got the following pitch in an email, in summary:
We will create personas and add value to communities around your topic and get links to you from members of those communities. Each link costs $xyzabcd.
When link buying turns into genuine, valuable editorial content that people would be happy to find in a SERP, which contains only indirectly affects the links you built… is link buying still problematic?
Update: See more on what Google wants, from the horses’ mouth.