Originally posted by Bromberger I really wonder what the benefit is for the people running this site. Is it just eyeballs leading to more ad revenue?
Traffic is always good for advertisers to spend money here. It also increases the chance of new subscribers who might want to become site supporters, I'm sure it keeps Adam in the good books of Pentax, as I know he gets exclusive behind closed doors interviews at conventions and the like, gets to test lens', cameras etc... so traffic is very good for business.
Spamming old photo's is sometimes not entirely the users fault. For example, my "Recent Photos" link, doesn't actually send me to recent photo's, not even to recently commented on photos, but to a "random collection of users photos". So, I've unwittingly been commenting on some real old photographs.
I post my own as I take them (as I've always done, nothing has changed there) but if there is a chance to win free stuff, definitely my time spent here will be increased above my normal, because, free stuff! And rather than spam the forum with all the mediocre images I take, I post only the ones I really like and do most of my commenting on other photographs that I find enjoyable. It's certainly better than some other threads like this where it's not much else but complaining. Positivity, even if it's just "hey, what a nice shot! Job well done!" on an old image, is much better in my books than anything else.