If I understand it correctly ...

TMF’s income is based on sales of ads at the top of pages?

If so the cost of those ads, to advertisers is based on the NUMBER of eyeballs viewing the ads.

So, by eschewing hundreds (thousands?) of posts TMF is cutting off it’s nose to spite its face.

So what if many (most?) posts aren’t strictly financial in nature?

TMF still gets the ad revenue.

As a retired businessman I fail to see the advantage to TMF of cutting down on boards.

Boards that don’t earn their keep? OK!

But boards that are making money for the Fool?

I fear this may be the beginning of a long spiral down into the abyss by the Fool.

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My guess is that TMF income is mostly from newsletter subscription fees. Reddit might be a better place to post if you want an ad supported online community.

“Join Over 1 Million Premium Members Receiving…” https://www.fool.com/services/

There are four types of communities on Reddit:
Public Communities
Restricted Communities (only approved members can post)
Private Communities (only approved members can view)
Premium-Only Communities (only Reddit Premium members can view)

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TMF’s income is based on sales of ads at the top of pages?

No. Probably 95% of their income (a guess) comes from selling subscription services and newsletters. They make almost nothing from banner ads. Nobody makes anything from banner ads. That market cratered about 20 years ago. Where you have been?

These boards are here because these boards used to be here. Nobody would start up a business like this because the economic model no longer exists. The Fool probably keeps it around because its cheap, and helps the brand. Not because there’s money to be made this way.

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The public Fool Community does provide a forum for potential Fools to get their feet wet, to become familiar with the TMF brand and message, and maybe one day become a paying subscriber.

There are a lot of reasons for the non-financial boards being closed, but since I wasn’t in the room where it happened, I could only speculate on what they were. All I know is that the decision wasn’t made quickly and it wasn’t made in a vacuum.

Fuskie
Who notes there is also value to advertisers who are able to place their brands in front of the eyeballs of TMF’s plentiful pool of users (those who don’t use adblockers, of course), whether they click through or not…


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