An interesting thread because the wheat and the chaff will...

An interesting thread because the wheat and the chaff will pretty much seperate themselves....

Facts are though that

a/ Data and hosting would make up the bulk of costs. The less posts there are then the lower the costs are. The less reads of those posts there are then the lower the costs are also it therefore flows from this that;

i/ if the freeloaders and abusive element remove themselves from the site by not paying then this in itself will improve the economics of running the site.

ii/ A more professional atmosphere will snowball to make an even MORE professional atmosphere (and quality of postings..)

b/ Advertisers are looking for vast numbers of unique 'eyeballs', the more likely to be interested in their product the better. Even at its peak HC never really had HUGE numbers of people logged on (though during the tech boom far far more than these days.). So, whilst advertising might contribute an amount it wont be enough by itself unless you buy something. Its pretty much for that reason that I use the HC Data Download service.

Seriously, how often (if ever) do you click on the banners.....