Isn’t the entire point of publishing to bring attention to a product

I mean yeah, but which projects will you be bringing attention to? He has enough clout to promote games and at least he's being transparent about him becoming a shill for hire, but if he expects to just trudge through his inbox and find the next indie game darling it's like, lol. Like if that was a viable business model, publishers would all be trudging through the sea of half-baked itch.io projects.