VerticalScope Inc Headed toward Bankruptcy?

[Mr Lucky]

I think that there's some delusion in the upper ranks that their AI bot, ForaFrank, is somehow going to save them.

That along with teaming up with Tollbit in order to sell their user generated content to train AI etc seems like a good move.

 

[Chris2]

That along with teaming up with Tollbit in order to sell their user generated content to train AI etc seems like a good move.

Was going to mention that. They blamed it all on AI. It’s infuriating what AI has done this year, but maybe there will be some recourse, if not too late. Hard going up against a multi-trillion dollar company though.

 

[ActorMike]

What a weird obsession to have with a company.

Stalker vibes.

What's weird is how one of the founders of this Canadian based company has been in the Grand Cayman Islands for years, while the company self-destructs. I'm not weird or a stalker, like you I've been involved in this space since the early days, before VS even existed. I come from a long line of entrepreneurs, and this is something that has caught my eye for a long time and as you may suspect, I'm not a fan of the company, leadership or the negative impact they've had on our industry.

Revenue decreased 17% year-over-year to $14.7M, there are meme coins on Solana with higher cashflow. The end is near, just remember, I called it first.

 

[GCT2007]

Say what you will about VS but none of us should hope for the demise of over a thousand communities and millions of members currently under their ownership and care.

 

[JamesBrown]

Say what you will about VS but none of us should hope for the demise of over a thousand communities and millions of members currently under their ownership and care.

I’d actually prefer they disappeared sooner rather than later. Those thousands of poorly maintained, poorly moderated forums give millions of people a bad first impression of what forums are. By the time they eventually find a well-run community like yours or mine, they’ve already decided they “don’t like forums.”

If there’s real interest in a topic, new communities will spring up; run by enthusiasts who care, not by a corporation treating forums as an advertising billboard.

 

[Suzanne O]

Say what you will about VS but none of us should hope for the demise of over a thousand communities and millions of members currently under their ownership and care.

Nah mate, they're terrible and are a scam organisation.

 

[GCT2007]

I’d actually prefer they disappeared sooner rather than later. Those thousands of poorly maintained, poorly moderated forums give millions of people a bad first impression of what forums are. By the time they eventually find a well-run community like yours or mine, they’ve already decided they “don’t like forums.”

If there’s real interest in a topic, new communities will spring up; run by enthusiasts who care, not by a corporation treating forums as an advertising billboard.

Agree to disagree but the risk of seeing literally billions of threads and posts vanishing would be a terrible thing. It's bad enough when privately owned communities close up shop and you lose years of historical data.

 

[briansol]

Dear VS, i'm a buyer for pennies on the dollar when it's time.

 

[MySiteGuy]

They post fundraising drives to get money to keep the servers going, and their target numbers are way higher than for my modest setup, which runs a similarly busy forum with no issues. In other words, something I can run for ~$500 in hosting and domain fees, they are asking thousands for. And because we all know that they host all of these on the same server...WTF. And this is in addition to loading up the forums with intrusive ads.

Is their time worth something, or the time they might pay a tech?

 

[MySiteGuy]

The forum I own was a result of a VS takeover. A site with a strong community dating all the way back to the late 90s got sold by the original owner very suddenly. Basically, we all found out after the deal was done. Community was pretty shocked to say the least.

Literally that morning, three of us who had been very active forum members for many years took action and set up a new forum and started a PM chain that snowballed. We had essentially alerted nearly ALL the active members within a day and had a seamless transition to a new forum which is still going strong a few years later. If anything, we're doing better now than the years leading up to the VS sell out.

Maybe not the most ethical thing on our part, but neither is what happened to the original forum. It's very media and creative content-heavy, and all of that became property of VS with no heads up. People were extremely unhappy. Many of which went back and manually removed all the content they'd contributed over the years. Needless to say, the forum VS purchased is very, very dead now.

IMHO, someone selling their forum is not unethical, and often times VS will require an NDA during negotiations that prevents the person from sharing that a sale is possible. This is common practice with business sales of all types.

VS does not "own" the content and media. They are doing the same thing the original owner did, and that's exercising a license to display it.

 

[Wildcat Media]

Is their time worth something, or the time they might pay a tech?

It's possible...but as you know, once a forum is up and running (including any customizations), there really isn't much to do except routine maintenance. I have many tasks automated (like backups), and have a few things in place to alert me for problems.

I trust it more when the owner of an independent forum tries to fundraise, as they know the costs, and also know what their members might contribute. One of the smaller forums I visit does a "pass the hat" thing yearly and because many of us there are friends who have met in person, nobody minds sending a few bucks his way.

But for "holding companies," no, I don't trust them. They purchased forums to turn a profit, not to maintain a community (outside of making sure it remains busy...to make more profit). I actually know one of the former owners of one of the forums in that smaller holding company, and I know his setup was nearly the same as mine, and he probably spent an order of magnitude less for hosting and upkeep than what this company was trying to raise. In addition to all the ads they plastered all over the site. One day I may ask him how it went, and how he feels about the changes...