pay to post sponsored builds?

[dualbrain]

I can understand the forum-owners, as the banners etc. you find within a worklog are a cheap solution for companies to get advertising into forums.

Usually they would need to pay the forum-owner for banner-placement etc.
By these extremely growing sponsoring-things in worklogs, the companies save money (hardware-parts - to the company - cost muuuuuch less than what you pay for) on "regular ads" and are also closer to the potential buyer AND adblockers have no chance. This makes the regular paying ad-clients feel like stupid. In Germany the two biggest forums already forbid these banners and big namings of sponsors in worklogs, because the "trademark-grab company from Germany" (yuck!) abused it sooooo much. They only allow to name the sponsor in text form at THE END of the first posting.

I fully understand it from the view of the forum owners and also from the perspective of many users who don't want to feel that our hobby is turning in to commercial uglyness where you don't know anymore if "good talking about a company / product" is because it's true, or just because the person needs to say it.

I see it like this:
Forum-owners earn less and less money with the growing "ad-placement" in worklogs. If the forum-owner doesn't earn enough money anymore, he can't run the forum - and you lose a home. This of course only applies to forums where the owner is not Robin Hood. People who take something should sometimes give something back.

Just my three cent and personal view on the topic.