To me, a more interesting question is why Olight manages to get under so many people’s skins? Including many who haven’t, and won’t buy one.
Why they’re popular has already been elucidated here, and with respect to how they operate their business, they are not unique.
Despite what the members of BLF, CPF or Reddit like or dislike, the market is broader, and larger than how some in those places see it.
bc of marketing and product accessibility. lots of stores carry olight. easy to buy and easy to use. and neat colors i guess.
i do have 1 olight, I5T Plus is pretty neat actually. one of the few lights with no proprietary parts, 2x AA, nice clicky mechanical switch, 2 modes. not really fond of the other stuff though. imo this is the most practical penlight. i bought it at prime sale price (27). i wouldnt buy it for 40 retail though.
This post is pure propaganda.
Well, now we know of two people who commented here without reading any of the posts…
Lock Picking Lawyer’s EDC video with an Olight i3T was one of the reasons why I became interested in AAA-sized flashlights. A YouTuber promoting a product. It worked. 
I deliberately avoided larger Olights with proprietary batteries but now my view has shifted (I can always mod a battery or torch). Happy to buy a larger torch if the emitter can be swapped.
I didn’t even get that far. I didn’t recognize the OP’s username, so I clicked for an activity summary:
I’m kind of wondering if it might be a good idea to enable a Discourse filter to require new users to actually interact with other people before they can post links.
Yes, even though I’m an inverted snob, I do have some i3t lights. Nothing proprietary, aaa, 2 modes, easy to use. I bought them on sale and got a freebie aaa light in the deal. I use them in edc kits - they’re for when I get caught without a light. If I think I’m going to be out in the dark I usually take a 21700 light. I’ve used the i3t to light my way home on an EUC when I was caught out later than expected - it did the job. Also the 5 lumens is enough for me to walk single track where there is no other lighting - that’s enough to easily run all night if needed.
@sb56637
The OP posted yet another monetized youtube video, still no participation in the forum, is this acceptable ?
Pretty good conversation starter.
Hi everyone, so this is obviously one of those delicate situations that needs to be moderated. I don’t want to choose sides, because both sides have valid arguments.
Definitely not. BLF Rule #1. If a user/reader is concerned that a post might be spam or otherwise inappropriate then please do not reply and only flag it, and it will be handled automatically and/or manually reviewed by me. Labeling people never turns out well. If it’s truly spam then it shouldn’t be bumped to the top or given more publicity by replying. And if there’s an actual human behind the post then it’s offensive to call them names and it won’t make them stop if they’re doing anything questionable.
To be completely transparent, when @FlashLightMike first started posting here the forum software actually automatically blocked him for posting multiple Youtube links as a new user. The videos to me seemed relevant to the topic of flashlights and obviously a lot of effort put into them (for example they’re not low-effort stock photo slides with computer generated narrations or subtitles), so I contacted @FlashLightMike via PM and restored his posting privileges.
These are also good points. Whether it was intentional or not, it can give the impression of spamming to only post links and not interact with the community. The most important part of BLF is its community of human users and the interaction between them, not the SEO or publicity aspect that it might offer.
So my best attempt at being fair in this case without being overly harsh towards something that wasn’t exactly wrong is as follows:
Thanks a lot to everyone for reading and for being reasonable in handling this sort of situation.
Nicely handled, sb!
(This issue is a touchy one.)
I saw that you were writing a response for a while, and it looks like you nailed it. 
Yes, they definitely have capitalised on online influencers, but they can’t be (arguably) the most popular brand of light just because of that. If their products were garbage they wouldn’t be selling as much, surely
Yes, I think the diversity of Olight is definitely something that assists in their popularity
Great question!
They have a strong business model, a strong awareness to push their products through affiliates and online influencers, and their products are just as useable as any other light brand out there. So it makes sense they are so popular
I do agree that propiatary batteries should be outlawed. I wonder how much money they make from battery sales…
Sorry about that. I am very, very new to this platform and I had no idea it was a place where I could also engage with people on my own video. Despite having a youtube channel, I am very much a beginner in online presence and social platforms.
I promise to engage more now that Tim has helped me with how to reply ect.
It’s nice to see you, FlashLightMike!
Thanks man!! I am getting the hang of it
Lotta people post reviews and such on the yootoob, and embed the video here, too.
Me, I prefer to engage with the reviewer here vs on the yootoob, because on yt comments may or may not be shown (“shadowbanned”, eg), any replies may or may not be seen as alerts, etc.
There’s too much invisible fkucery going on at yt, to the point it’s gone past frustrating and into disgusting.
At least here, everything’s visible.
So it’s essentially quantity (but low quality) on yt, and quality (but possibly low quantity) here.