Hey there Dave! It's Chris, better known as ZombiePie on Giant Bomb. I made this account to drop this comment and have no idea if I will use it any further and

Hey there Dave! It's Chris, better known as ZombiePie on Giant Bomb. I made this account to drop this comment and have no idea if I will use it any further and I have no idea if you will see this. I definitely appreciate everything you shared here and wish you nothing but the best in where you are in your life. There are just a few things I'd like to add. The precedent the Whiskey Media era made of what a video game website could do with as little interruption to the user experience set itself apart at the start, but it also was largely unsustainable as you outline here. I'm not sure how many upstart video game networks today will be able to keep the lights on for full-time staff with wages and benefits without the two or three known ways to keep a website running and profitable. There are no Shelby's that are willing to funnel millions into a digital risk like Whiskey Media in the hopes of selling everything for a profit. Likewise, and I understand it because I was there, but the nostalgia for the "old way of things" on the internet sometimes ignore the constant failures. WM hit it out of the park with Tested, Comic Vine, and Giant Bomb, but it also had Boompa and Political Base. Also, constantly increasing the size of the net of a website network without refining it and ensuring the starting portfolio is profitable was always a constant frustration. You said it best during the 10-year anniversary podcast when you listed the many times when Giant Bomb should have died, but the new monetization systems followed by new monetization systems left behind other key features that needed refinement and updates. Also, the new systems posed issues and didn't draw nearly enough money. All that aside, the reality is that just having a single domain your one stop shop for everything, like what Giant Bomb and Comic Vine tried to be just is not how people consume media on the internet these days. Web 2.0 also had its glory days and I certainly look back at it with a big smile on my face, but you look at things on YouTube and Twitch and you cannot help but thing media online is just changing. That's the nature of the beast. All that aside, I wish you and your family nothing the best and I want to thank you for the many memories and for listening to my nasally voice during those call-in segments many years ago.