For marketing, I would reach out to anything related to Engineering and Science. Popular Mechanics, Scientific American, IEEE Spectrum, Discovery are just a few. Explain and show them why Factorio is more than a typical game. How it massages active problem solving skills, can be used to teach logic,...

I also agree with the devs. For the starting player, it's a core feature of the gameplay.
My vote is leave it as a feature that can be enabled in mods.