Quoted from robin:The answer is simple. Independence. In order to be a free forum (free as in 'free speech' not 'free beer') we made a conscious decision to not seek or accept 'sponsorship' from any big companies. The way Pinside is set up now ensures us being independent (no obligations or any appearances of conflict of interest).
Sure, there are quite a few companies on Pinside who are supporting us through donations and sales fees but none have any definitive 'say' in how I run the site. And that is good news for all of our 35,000+ members (and many more non-members) who come to Pinside to read the good, the bad and the (sometimes) ugly.
Imagine if one or two of the larger pinball companies would pay the bills for us. We would become dependent on them. And then when someone posted something in the forums that these companies didn't like (hard to believe, but it does happen occasionally) they would have the power to force me to remove such content. Pinside would quickly turn into a Facebook comments page.
That not a position I want the site to be in. And that's why we decided that the whole community should all contribute a little. More recently (since Expo 2014) we have been trying to distribute this a bit more fairly: those who make money using the site should contribute a bit more too.
I hope that explains our (according to some unusual) angle to making Pinside sustainable and profitable.
I totally understand what you're saying, but how can:
corvette forum
avs forum
operation sports
ultimate guitar
etc
Forums that theoretically would have the exact same problem, but don't. That's all I was asking, how can 99% of internet forums not have this issue, but pinside does? People bash the major players all the time on those forums.
I also kind of laugh at some of the malware claims from some of other posters in this thread, almost every single website you visit has ads on it including all other forums, so are people just not visiting anywhere but pinside? 
