I haven't read the full thread, so sue me. Just the first page. But here's my thoughts upon seeing this for the first time only a few minutes ago:
To brand something that heavily is nothing new. Look at the bottom of Yahoo and MSN emails "Do you Yahoo? Brought to you by Yahoo mail." That person may have nothing to do with Yahoo, is not making money off that marketing, and may not even like their yahoo service. And yet, the advertising is there. And these things are understood.
It's an attempt to find a spot that isn't yet "blind" to advertising. Nobody looks at the top inch of a page anymore, because they just expect to see banners. It's a mental commercial skip function. So they're trying to put the banners somewhere where they will be seen.
If it keeps the board free, and helps defray the bandwidth and administrative costs, what does it matter? Everyone will quickly realize that nobody here is actually associated with or "pushing" the Adult Dialer Solution. Your sigs are still intact and fine, and people will still click on them.
I doubt that this is "the end of GFY as we know it." Seriously. The day that people stop asking girls for titty shots and telling each other to GFY and starting huge flame wars.. that's the day that GFY will have ended as we know it.
