I don't understand why people think torrent websites are not profitable. Reddit and TF comments always claim it's not-for-profit. IsoHunt might not have as much profit as TPB due to it's constant lawsuits. However, hosting a website like IsoHunt is fairly lightweight in comparison to hosting YouTube. Torrents are tiny files, $30k server bills per month at most, probably they spend $10k/mo. They have ads and paid membership. I doubt they earn $110 million, but I do believe it's likely that they atleast earn $4 mill per year. Keep in mind there website has a lot of traffic.
Who would want to advertise on TPB, though? I have to wonder how much those ads could possibly go for considering it's a website focused on giving you something for free which you would ordinarily have to pay for. I am aware that there are legitimate files on TPB, but most people visit for pirated content.
I've never been a user of TPB so I can't tell you who has advertised there, but there are lots of people out there who will drop $600 on a phone and then jailbreak it so they can pirate 99 cent apps. For a lot of folks there is a clear line between digital content easily gotten and other stuff and they'll pay a lot for the other stuff but will pirate digital content when it is convenient to do so.
I'm not saying this is right, but in my experience it is pretty common. I've witnessed multiple instances of people teaching other people how to torrent including once in a jury lounge in a county courthouse and many times at workplaces that produce digital goods (software) and the general idea seemed to be that if they can get whatever digital thing (eg. the latest episode of Game of Thrones) for free, why not? And yet these are people who drive nice cars, wear nice clothes, and buy lots of expensive gadgets, squarely in the demographic of people that advertisers of non-digital goods like to target.
OTOH, I would suspect TPB (like 4chan) has a problem where advertisers of "upscale" goods just don't want to be associated with the "brand" of the site, regardless of the demographic match. But I don't think the fact that the users are people who want things "for free" is a disqualifier.
"Download accelerators" like installerex.com or "anonymous vpn" (they advertise getprivate.net at the moment) which installs adware. Also, Samsung advertises on TPB ( https://torrentfreak.com/samsung-exposed-as-top-advertiser-o... ). Adware can generate high revenue even on websites like TPB since the adware wont appear on TPB but replace a legitimate sites ad banner. The industry has gotten a little harder mind you, since adsense recently stopped adware software from using adsense's "custom search" ad.
> because that's the image their PR machine has very carefully cultivated
That's perfectly written. TPB once stood for freedom of the internet, even I don't deny that. However, when the original founders gave the website to an offshore company it became a website purely for profit but continued using the "freedom" excuse to create some kind of moral high ground.
