Question about Forum Economics.........

[Smokey]

So another online forum I previously spent a lot of time with just shut down.  It was pretty popular given the community size with about 2.2M posts.  The claim was that they had never in their 18 year history ran a profit, and always lost money.  That coupled with a recent lawsuit over user posted copyrighted photos caused them to throw in the towel and with one month notice, shut off all new posts and delete all user photos on normal posts (they are leaving the text).

With that said my question is, what's the deal with forum economics?  How hard is it to run a web forum and not lose money, or get sued into losing money?  I'm not asking to see anyone's tax returns, just ballpark idea.
I think I remember Dave saying that before his other ventures like branded multi-meter and other widgets, that he made most of his money off the forum (and not really the actual Youtube videos).  Does this forum just have users/advertisers with high return that make it profitable, or does all the money come indirectly in that it's just a place to organize potential donations and customers for products but not from the forum itself.

Also, was there some recent change to the laws or something that opened forum owners up to new copyright issues with user uploaded photos?

[mariush]

A big forum requires one or several dedicated servers which can cost hundreds of dollars a month (depending on hardware specs, bandwidth, support levels..
Then you have moderators volunteers or paid ... you won't get people willing to buy ads if you have spam
forums generally suck at ads  (people clicking them) so often you have generic / unrelated pay per impression banners at you get maybe  10-50 cents for 100k views or something like that.
It's different for niche forums like eevblog where Dave can make custom deals and place banners himself instead of relying on Adsense or other ad companies.
for laws see GDPR, all that "must show EU people warning about cookies and get their consent" crap...

the forum should not be liable for copyrighted content posted by members... but  it depends on country of forum owner... it's messy.

(typing with on screen keyboard, please excuse typos and lack of uppercase, not used to it)

[MrMobodies]

I hope it doesn't close down.

I find that the adverts here don't annoy me.
They don't move, flash or interfere with my viewing of the page and seem inkeeping with the content.

I see a JLCPCB PCB Prototype $2 advert
200 MHz Mixed Signal Oscilliscope

That $2 can jump up to $147 for 6 layer and 2mm thick but I am more likely to explore banners like that than the aggressive ones on other sites.

[Shock]

Did you notice we have a computing section on the forums now?

If you find the right kind of deal you can get reliable shared hosting with enough bandwidth and storage for under $100 a year. When you need more than that you will be very popular and it will be easy to determine your future requirements based on growth, your service provider can also assist with determining this as well.

The hosting is NOTHING compared to the time you invest in setting up the forum and managing it. I've spent days working on just automated backup and recovery systems, optimization and hardening the against spammers and exploits.

When I hear about forums shutting down etc, and copyright info as an excuse, it sounds like either they ignored it or are making an excuse to close. If it's a hobby, no income streams and not financially viable it sounds like a burden. I see no reason if a forum is popular and has community support why the admin can't garner sponsors, supporters or even run google ads etc. Give forum users an option, help contribute or see ads.

[soldar]

Trying to make a profit is one thing and probably pretty difficult. But there are many forums out there that are run by individuals just for fun of it and the hosting is probably very little and one or a few individuals pay it out of their pockets just for the fun of it.

[EEVblog]

So another online forum I previously spent a lot of time with just shut down.  It was pretty popular given the community size with about 2.2M posts.  The claim was that they had never in their 18 year history ran a profit, and always lost money.

Forums don't cost that much to run, I'm surprised a big forum could find at least a few advertisers to pay the bills.

How hard is it to run a web forum and not lose money, or get sued into losing money?

Anyone can get sued at any time for anything at all. Doesn't matter if it's not even remotely feasible you'd win, you can still sue someone. And if they don't have the money to hire a lawyer to fight it then you can force them to shut their doors or whatever. Common tactic to shut down small businesses.

I'm not asking to see anyone's tax returns, just ballpark idea.
I think I remember Dave saying that before his other ventures like branded multi-meter and other widgets, that he made most of his money off the forum (and not really the actual Youtube videos).  Does this forum just have users/advertisers with high return that make it profitable, or does all the money come indirectly in that it's just a place to organize potential donations and customers for products but not from the forum itself.

If all my other business income failed the forum would still pay for itself and could survive as it's own entity through the ads and Aliexpress affiliate program you see here.

Also, was there some recent change to the laws or something that opened forum owners up to new copyright issues with user uploaded photos?

Would depend entirely on the country I would guess.
I don't know why any sensible forum owner wouldn't remove a photo if requested to be the owner, Especially one that got threatened legally, you'd just remove it to make the problem go away.

[Smokey]

Cool.  Thanks for the feedback.  I never really bought the story of why they are shutting down, but it's not important anymore.  Good to have another data point for comparison anyway.

Related questions:. Would you recommend trying to run a forum of this size?  Is it more work than it's worth? How long would it take for the place to get completely upside-down if the moderators left and you just stopped moderating entirely?

[EEVblog]

Related questions:. Would you recommend trying to run a forum of this size?  Is it more work than it's worth?

You have to "the type". If you are forum user nerd already then you'll enjoy running a forum.

How long would it take for the place to get completely upside-down if the moderators left and you just stopped moderating entirely?

Spam would likely be a bigger problem than the users.

[SparkyFX]

Also, was there some recent change to the laws or something that opened forum owners up to new copyright issues with user uploaded photos?

Would depend entirely on the country I would guess.
I don't know why any sensible forum owner wouldn't remove a photo if requested to be the owner, Especially one that got threatened legally, you'd just remove it to make the problem go away.

This is what a EU legislative proposal´s infamous article 13 was about, the removal of copyrighted material before someone even complains, legally requiring platforms/service providers to check the uploads. But it did not even say how or against what data. There were limitations on amount of users (only applies over a certain amount), the age of the platform (only if older than 5 years) and things like that, but it would impose a problem on many forums as well, as the costs for that would either explode or make them liable for damages due to hosted content. It was kind of targeted at the huge platforms, or would require others to adopt their proprietary methods (like ContentID).

The situation before was that you would need to react in acceptable time (~24h) and only if the copyright owner complains through a required feedback option on the website or an address, which is not that problematic. Leaves questions how someone authenticates himself, but well... sometimes it is kind of obvious when looking at the content in question. Of course the sensible choice is to have terms of service that outright forbid uploading copyrighted material without the permission to do so, which transfers the responsibility to check what is uploaded to the uploader.

These huge platforms grew so big so fast because they treated content moderation or data privacy not the way a publisher would need to, now it backfires on many levels. And then there is politics and politicians.

[Nominal Animal]

The internal structure of the forum also matters, first impressions even more.

For example, I think having the Beginner section in this forum, with explicit A place for newbies to ask questions, is sheer genius (or good luck).

Forums where beginner and advanced questions are mixed, often frustrate a subset of the experienced members (who dislike the beginner questions), and causes friction.
As an example, I left LinuxQuestions ages ago, because the moderators there required a friendly supportive attitude even for those posting obvious homework.
At StackExchange sites, the voting mechanism brings forth most popular answers, in the hopes that they are the correct ones; and that is not always true.
Because of the gamification, at SE members are also quite unwilling to admit to making any errors, and instead either ignore, or just delete their answers (which often causes somebody else to post a similar, erroneous, answer).

Sometimes, even perfectly good intentions are misread, and that leads to negative reactions; that's what happened to legacy (and his friends' vintage computing discussion board, downthebunker).

Dave is an easy to approach person, and I think that has shaped this forum a lot, to be that way as well.