[Proper Syntax]

Originally Posted by Mark.B

This is a myth.

The vast majority of customers never customised their boards at all. Most didn't even bother with a custom style. The same issue is seen with XenForo and IPB, look at how many completely stock sites there are out there.

That's not to say there was no value in vbulletin.org, far from it, and I will always be its greatest advocate and supporter, but the idea that most customers used it is not true at all.

This is true, but the devil's in the details. The minority of people on this site accounted for an obscene amount of direct or indirect referrals (ultimately sales, positioning, and stability) to vBulletin.

IPB would've crushed vBulletin in the absence of vBulletin.org. It's also provided strong momentum to the software. It's also served as a migration backstop due to old modifications. I know many, many admins who won't leave vB due to old mods.

TL;DR, imagine what vBulletin would be and where it would be, without vBulletin.org. This is what I mean by details, and we can still go deeper than that. Nobody who's been around for a while will deny the importance this site held.

As Paul said, IB shot themselves in the foot. They didn't realize that referrals were the #1 source of vBulletin's business, and how vBulletin.org was an integral part of that. vBulletin.org wasn't their only source, but it was both large and multi-dimensional.

And I say IB didn't realize how important vBulletin.org was because of, you know, vB5.