And who exactly is it you got this reliable "rumor" from? And what do you assume they pay him that kind of money for? Hosting their banner ads? No way. Before posting rumors as fact and making assumptions, you would do well to state the source of such supposed information.
<i>And what do you assume they pay him that kind of money for?</i> Deleting anything critical of them or referencing a competetitor, regardless of truth. Why don't you ask him how much he makes? It seems like he should share a little with you.
Let me remind you that all deleting of posts on this forum are done by me, not Baron, and I was never instructed by him to remove posts critical of a certain firm or sponsor. I delete posts containing personal attacks against another member, profanity, or blatent solicitations or sales for goods and services. Of course it doesn't make sense to allow a free for all of sales pitches and ads on the boards when sponsors do indeed pay to have banner ads on this site. However, do you really believe that in the current economy, where not only major online businesses like Yahoo and Amazon can't turn a profit, but commissions to online brokerages have dropped considerably due to the thinning out of daytraders, lower volumes, and commission price cutting, that these firms can afford to pay $10,000 a month to ONE site out of myriad online trading sites and forums just to make sure no one says anything bad about them? If he's lucky I'd say the money Baron gets from banner ads pays for his monthly web hosting expenses, with maybe a few dollars left over. As I've said before, having worked on commercial websites, I can say that banner ad revenues aren't all that hardy. Since you haven't furnished a source of your supposed information, I will take that to mean that it is simply some theory by you and not actually based on anything substantive. Baron is under no obligation to share anything with me, nor do I require it. If I didn't want to be a moderator for free, I wouldn't be--period. Besides, I make all the money I need without having to be paid for moderating a forum.
Who gives a crap what Baron makes from Elite Trader? If he's breaking even, he's a nice guy for keeping the site up. If he's making a ton of money from the site, then he's a very shrewd and nice guy.
<i>Let me remind you that all deleting of posts on this forum are done by me, not Baron</i> You mean on this thread only, right? Not on all of elitetrader? Then why do I get nasty PM's from "Baron" and emails from "baron" at elitetrader.com ? And no, I did not make up that $10k/mo figure. It was posted on another message board. Terranova is huge, and they practically own this site, so I believe it.
getting advertising or sponsorship is a shit business, but can be better in a niche targeted business such as this - but who gives a shit - if he was not covering his overhead - he would not be around for long - and if he is making a bucket load of money - i hear it on good authourity - that he is going to share all his profits with all the people who put interesting and thought provoking posts on here - you know who you are and who you arn't!