You killed this site.

[Egaladeist]

This site has no commercial interests of itself, it is hosted without charge by a commercial organisation that sells advertising. Given that there is no such thing as a free meal, I really don't have a problem with that. There is no profit from mine or anyone else's contributions, that comes entirely from their advertising skills. This is a community discussion forum at the end of the day.

This site has only commercial interests...I'm sure that when QuinStreet markets to generate ads they market pkg traffic. That is to say they market the traffic of all their sites as one package. I'm sure that QuinStreet isn't motivated by altruistic ideals.

I don't have a problem with advertisements either, I was just making the point that certain benefits come with participation on a commercial site...like being able to link to sites.

And there definitely is profit coming from your contributions, without contributions there's no traffic, no traffic no advertisers, no advertisers no profit, no profit no forum.

QuinStreet isn't in business to carry dead weight around unless they can use it ( a loss here ) to off-set gains in other places. If AO was just dead weight they'd toss it as quick as they got it.

They definitely do not have the same loyalty to the members as the members may have to the forum. The members, and the forum, are, from a commercial mindset, ' expendable ' at the very moment the forum becomes ' dead weight '. Which can't be said of non-commercial forums.