I’ve been researching it. It’s hard to say. I haven’t found anything that makes me think one way or another. I went back and looked at what previous “Link spam” updates meant and didn’t gather much information.
Me nor any of my clients have had any dips in traffic and we all use paid links (as well as all of our competitors). We don’t use PBNs or GSA or anything like that. Haven’t seen anyone be affected by it yet.
I still think that Google has a difficult time differentiating between a paid link and a legitimate one. I still see link farms gaining massive amounts of traffic even after these updates so whatever Google says, I have a hard time believing.