In the background the issue is that advertising has become more intelligent at last. VC funding and free is under pressure as well. It would appear that reality is taking grip and profit has rejoined the dictionary.
People are becoming more focused on how their advertising budget is spent at last. In the early days you just threw your money at Google and let it handle it. This has led to rates going down and less income for sites like Photobucket.
So the choice is to pay or accelerate advertising or go pop and close up. It will happen on more things. The Internet has driven a total "its free" attitude. We benefit from it on TM as someone is kind enough to underwrite it. I cannot remember when I last paid for an App on my iPhone and so "in app purchases" is becoming the scourge there are well.
Ain't nothin free worth avin as my uncle used to say.
