Advertising on the forum no longer supported?

[pawel7777]

I came back to bitcointalk in December 2022 after few years break. Today I realised that there doesn't seem to be any forum ads. I checked Theymos' post history and looks like the last ad auction round was 353 from July 2022.

Has the forum officially ceased selling ads? Can anyone explain what was the logic behind that decision (or just link me to relevant post)?

Is the forum only generating revenue from donations now? Doesn't seem like a viable business model.

[RapTarX]

Read here- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5407725.msg60976136#msg60976136

But if someone is still interested to advertise, they can reach out to theymos and share the details though according to theymos, the chance is pretty low. The ad sales is probably ended forever. There are basically three reasons for this decision-
1. Time-consuming to check out if the service is legit or not.
2. Ad processing complexity
3. Bitcointalk has more than enough fund

[EFS]

If you check last post of that thread you linked, you see the reason.

Note that I've decided to suspend ad sales. These auctions will probably be permanently ended, and I'm not sure whether or in what form advertising in general will be continued. Maybe some ads will go up again fairly soon, or maybe there will never be any more ads; I haven't decided yet. The main reasons for this decision are:

Firstly, I'm finding it too difficult to determine which services are legit/safe and which are not. It takes me 30+ minutes to research each new service to reach at least some level of confidence in it, but at the end of this I often still don't feel fully confident. Bitcointalk.org is meant to be operated "as a service to the community", so it's very important to me that bitcointalk.org not be seen to be putting profit above the interests of its users. (I've been kind of shocked at the crypto-related ads that are shown on TV, which are often way beyond anything I'd accept here. And I'd like to tighten our standards.)

Secondly, there is a high amount of friction in the current process of auctions and manual ad processing. I often feel that it's more trouble than it's worth on bitcointalk.org's end. I also think that the revenue is substantially less than it could be because the market of advertisers willing to deal with this difficult process is much smaller than the market of advertisers who would be willing to advertise here if only they could do so effortlessly. So I think that we're "leaving a lot of money on the table" due to friction, which makes the other issues feel even worse.

Finally, bitcointalk.org has a large reserve of BTC, so we're able to continue operating without ad revenue for many years. It's not even necessary to cut expenses or find replacement sources of revenue anytime soon, and I currently have no solid plans to do these things. I do regard it as less than ideal to be operating at a constant loss, especially because it constraints any desired future growth in expenses. Improving this situation will be on my mind in the coming years, but luckily it need not be a high priority.

[AbuBhakar]

According to the ads stats(https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adstats), the current round is already on 358 (January 28 to February 27). I believe Theymos is only accepting an offer and not through the form of ad sales auction like the previous version.

[RapTarX]

According to the ads stats(https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adstats), the current round is already on 358 (January 28 to February 27). I believe Theymos is only accepting an offer and not through the form of ad sales auction like the previous version.

None of the slots are rented by anyone. All the slots are filled with text. You can check more information here- https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adinfo
Rounds are getting updated automatically as theymos didn't remove the ad slots from the forum. Currently, 9 slots are filled with the below message & the other one is a factoid slot as we had back in the day.

The Bitcoin network protocol was designed to be extremely flexible. It can be used to create timed transactions, escrow transactions, multi-signature transactions, etc. The current features of the client only hint at what will be possible in the future.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Wow OP, I've been here the entire time you've been taking a break, and I hadn't even noticed the lack of advertising.  Either you're extremely perceptive or I'm at the extreme end of apathy toward such things.  I'm thinking reality is somewhere near the middle, skewed toward the latter.

And hey, with the layout of the forum looking exactly like it was for the last 8-10 years probably, you'd better believe it when Theymos says he's got enough money to sustain it for the foreseeable future.  Makes ya wonder whatever happened to that new forum software, right?

[pawel7777]

Read here- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5407725.msg60976136#msg60976136

If you check last post of that thread you linked, you see the reason.

Thanks both. I didn't even think of scrolling to the bottom of that thread.

According to the ads stats(https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adstats), the current round is already on 358 (January 28 to February 27). I believe Theymos is only accepting an offer and not through the form of ad sales auction like the previous version.

If there are no auctions anymore and the duration is determined individually for each advertiser, then what would the "round" refer to in these stats?

Rounds are getting updated automatically as theymos didn't remove the ad slots from the forum. Currently, 9 slots are filled with the below message & the other one is a factoid slot as we had back in the day.

Do we know if this is accurate at all? Even if it is, it would be showing running ads as of now, meaning there could've been some ad campaigns between the round 353 and today.

Wow OP, I've been here the entire time you've been taking a break, and I hadn't even noticed the lack of advertising.  Either you're extremely perceptive or I'm at the extreme end of apathy toward such things.

Nah, I wouldn't have noticed that myself if it wasn't for me checking advertisement policies for an unrelated topic.

[AbuBhakar]

-snip

Yes it’s not rented but it doesn’t mean ads sales stop at round 353 since theymos is still accepting offer which is why the round count keeps adding up.

According to the ads stats(https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adstats), the current round is already on 358 (January 28 to February 27). I believe Theymos is only accepting an offer and not through the form of ad sales auction like the previous version.

If there are no auctions anymore and the duration is determined individually for each advertiser, then what would the "round" refer to in these stats?

I believe the current ads stats is based on the default text ads set by the forum which you will see randomly that gives some general warning or tips etc.

[PX-Z]

Is the forum only generating revenue from donations now? Doesn't seem like a viable business model.

The forum has enough budget/reserve for many years that funds getting from forum ads is unnecessary anymore.
With the mixers issue and selective scamming of gambling sites, since these two are the most service who get ad slots here, it really make sense theymos stopping forum ads being undecided on what service he will accept.

[Saisher]

Is the forum only generating revenue from donations now? Doesn't seem like a viable business model.

The forum has enough budget/reserve for many years that funds getting from forum ads is unnecessary anymore.
With the mixers issue and selective scamming of gambling sites, since these two are the most service who get ad slots here, it really make sense theymos stopping forum ads being undecided on what service he will accept.

It's better to strike a deal than an auction type so the forum can choose the kind of ads that is suited for the Bitcoin community, Bitcointalk is so huge that a project or company can easily get massive leads if advertise here in Bitcointalk, they can easily get long term advertising contract because Bitcointalk is here to stay for a long time.
I hope they can still show ads but for projects that are suited to what they want to show, we should be thankful that Bitcointalk is supporting its members even though there are no ads for revenues.

[dzungmobile]

Has the forum officially ceased selling ads? Can anyone explain what was the logic behind that decision (or just link me to relevant post)?

People shared the announcement from theymos to stop forum advertisement banners but they forgot or did not know when it likely initially considered by theymos.
Forum advertising DeFi totally-not-scams. Read a reply from theymos.

Advertising Phore itself definitely wouldn't be allowed. That's why I initially rejected their bids in the auction. Phore is definitely an "ICO-type-thing", which is explicitly banned from advertising: buying these sorts of tokens is something like buying shares in penny stocks, but even far more risky. However, I interpret this ad as advertising a product of Phore, namely the Graphene ecosystem and apps built on top of it such as their Marketplace. By analogy, I see this like Nikola advertising their fuel cell technology and their maybe-soon-to-be-available vehicles, not Nikola advertising NKLA shares.

Phore only paid about $500 for this ad. It wouldn't make economic sense, especially since many advertisers would have to be checked for every one ad that is accepted, wins slots in the auction, and ends up paying. By memory, I'd guess that in the last 3 years there's been only 2 or 3 ads pulled after acceptance due to something I missed. Bitcointalk.org ads are far more high-quality than eg. AdSense ads are. If even this low level of risk became unacceptable, then it'd make more sense to just not sell ads. (Not selling ads is something that I've considered, since it's a lot of trouble for not really that much return, but without ads the forum's cashflow would currently be way too far in the negative. I'd have to come up with an additional source of revenue first.)

This case seems to be a difference of opinion on policy rather than an issue of something I missed, though. I just see very little potential for harm from this ad, even if Phore's tokens are risky. It seems very unlikely to me that even a single person is going to view this ad and/or read the linked article, develop a desire to invest in Graphene despite the lack of any real suggestion from the ad/article to do so, do the research to figure out that they need to buy Phore tokens to get Graphene tokens, and go do that. Rather, the purpose of the ad seems to be to improve Graphene's reputation as a platform for dApps, not to attract investment. The state of the ad auction was such that rejecting Phore's ad would've resulted in no loss in revenue whatsoever; I allowed it as a matter of fairness/consistency.

It takes theymos about 2 years to decide suspending ad sales.

Is the forum only generating revenue from donations now? Doesn't seem like a viable business model.

Forum is not a business, it is an organization (.org).

Theymos stated that forum does not need new donation when forum members asked for reduction in 50 BTC donation in order to have VIP badge. I can not find that post of theymos at the moment so I quoted the below one instead.

In any case, I thought I recalled Theymos saying the forum's finances were such that no more donations were needed

[pawel7777]

It's better to strike a deal than an auction type so the forum can choose the kind of ads that is suited for the Bitcoin community,(...)

Maybe. But it doesn't look like there are any ads at all currently. With the auctions, there were always some takers, and I think a fair portion of them were legit businesses operating for quite a while (i.e. some gambling sites). It seems odd that none of them managed to strike a deal with Theymos directly.

(...)
Theymos stated that forum does not need new donation when forum members asked for reduction in 50 BTC donation in order to have VIP badge. I can not find that post of theymos at the moment so I quoted the below one instead.

This kind of makes sense. If the forum is sitting on a big pile of reserves, which cannot just be distributed to Theymos himself, then there's no really a need to increase those reserves. Especially if Bitcoin keeps going up long-term. Then it's theoretically possible that those reserves will never get depleted.

As for the lowering the BTC50 donations, it could be seen as unfair to those who actually paid the BTC50 to get their badges.

[yahoo62278]

As for the lowering the BTC50 donations, it could be seen as unfair to those who actually paid the BTC50 to get their badges.

To be fair, if Btc was worth almost 30k when the old donators donated, noone would have donated anything. At least nowhere near 50btc. The price for donators badge should have been set at a dollar amount vs btc amount and people might still be willing to pay the price today.

[Findingnemo]

As many others explained the reasons why forum slots are no more operational for advertising purpose but filled with text related to bitcoin and bitcointalk but it will be more effective if those slots displays more informative contents like something voted by community members and it circulates for s cycle then new statements new votes.