I wonder how much they paid for that site. They have just gone and ruined the whole thing. They should probably start over from scratch at this point.
They are not making money directly off the members, or amount of posts. As long as the big mego-mart advertisers are paying VS, VS doesn't care about the content of that board.
They (VS) had 2 main choices:
1) leave the DML for the most part the way it was, maybe make a little bit of changes that the community wouldn't be upset by. Downside is that VS wouldn't make as much $$ in advertising.
2) make the beast with two backs up the DML by putting a shit-load of ads everywhere and making a bunch more $$ than the DML was making before. Downside is that the community would get pissed and leave, advertising $$ will go down in the future, but advertisers probably entered a contract so $$ should be good for a year or so (my guess at how long the sponsoring contracts are)
As long as VS makes more money the first year than VS paid for the DML, they came out on top, financially. It costs VS almost nothing to run the DML, a Internet connection, server, a shitty under-paid admin that oversees 10 sites a day
*I* think VS sucks sweaty monkey sack because they craped on my favorite website, but it's not that bad of a business plan, they are making a ton of money.
