Man running a website that's probably worth $1M/year in ad revenue but decided not to monetize it in any way.

Site is https://steamdb.info/ (database of steam games) if you were wondering.

That is an extremely useful site that I use all the time. Hats off to the guy.
People are still playing TF2? Or is it bots?
- Funny time to ask, a seasonal update just came out and the game apparently broke its peak playercount numbers.

There was a guy who started a personal website back in like 96 or 97. He basically posted his scans and screencaps of celebrity nudity. He also opened a celebrity nudity message board that he built from scratch. The board thrived. It became a hub for all the superstars in the "celebrity imaging" internet community. All the guys from all the best IRC channels would premier their work on this site. Eventually he expanded into a celebrity nudity database. He wrote scripts that would scrape Usenet, IRC and a slew of other resources for new pictures of famous women in various states of undress. Each image was meticulously cataloged, indexed and tagged. The entire thing was an amazing bit of engineering. He was a literal pioneer in the wild west that was late 90's internet. Mr Skin LITERALLY got his start on this man's board. The database was huge, and it ran smooth as butter. He eventually changed to a subscription model where you pay by the gig. I don't know how much he charged, because he grandfathered all the regulars and old schoolers in for life.

He could have gone the Mr. Skin route and partnered up with sponsors, put banner ads on every single page, he could have asked me to actually pay for my membership... And he would have made a shit load of money in the process. But he didn't.

For almost 25 years he ran the site, personally cataloging every new image that was added every day. He closed it down this past November. And it really hit me just how rare a place like that is these days.

That's what I miss about the old internet, when people did things for fun, to share information, to connect... and they had integrity.

An elegy for a clockwork-smooth, labor of love, tit slip site? Well, the Internet is alive and kicking!
What was the site called?

Almost certainly someone who already has a decent amount of money. Looks like he's a full-stack dev, likely works at a good company. Respect not monetising the site.

Not everybody does everything for money...
- 0 people who struggle for money would pass up on an extra 100k a year in return for slapping an ad banner on a page
  
  keep in mind this guy doesn't run any affiliate links or donations either. He's sitting on a literal goldmine, this isn't some niche project.

And here I thought this would be an article about spez not including ads in Reddit’s API feed.

Nah, spez would murder you for money if he could. And then carpet bomb your corpse with ads.

He can run ads for me. I'd like 1m please.