Commercial Services

I don't particularly care whether I can see it, I'm not going to be spending my money there. I wasn't being argumentative, merely raising probing questions as to the logic of the decision - I wasn't really expecting a response, but it's what I do for a living, so hard to snap out of it

From my experience, no-one is going to pay serious money for something on a forum - most paying requests are borne out of frustration of automating simple tasks or for people who are under tight time pressures to such an extent they are prepared to pay to resolve their issues. I doubt anyone (and would question the wisdom of anyone who would) would be prepared to pay a reasonable (reasonable is subjective, but for the sake of argument I'm judging it by the standards of the country I live in) amount of money for full projects without actually speaking to someone - forums are all well and good for quick specific fixes, but as replacements for proper projects - they are not.

It is impossible to communicate effectively enough in a forum environment one's requirements and needs for any but relatively simple tasks. As such, most paid requests I would assume will come from time pressured/frustrated people with a specific itch to scratch; they are prepared to pay since they neither have the inclination or skills to complete the task themselves and are likely a different customer segment than a lot of the users who request help here currently. Due to the specificity of the requests, it's would be reasonable to assume that the answers will be of limited use to anyone else and as long as their problem is resolved, they won't care if their solution is "visible to the world".

From a revenue perspective, what's more important? Drawing in more paying customers by allowing them to see the services on offer or not upsetting a very small subset of customers who wouldn't want their solution made public? I'd always rather have a larger customer base and opt to hide individual threads at the request of the customer over reducing my addressable market by not "displaying my wares".

Anyway, post done; it's the prerogative of the owner, so any of our opinions are moot.