

It worked for Google. They corraled a majority of the internet into providing them add revenue. Google maps, Gmail, google search engine, youtube… all just more ways for them to scrape your data and serve you adds. Investors are hedging their bets on what could replace google as the information monopoly of the future.
Companies killing forums and communities by choice or apathy is so disheartening. They have so much control over what we see and talk about everyday, and they can even just turn the community off by providing poor service.