User blog comment:RealKnockout/Will Fandom Die?/@comment-1038387-20191206193829

". Also, other wiki sites like Gamepedia, UniWiki. and Wikipedia might be stealing Fandom users and readers. "

Gamepedia was sold off by Amazon (it has no ads, so makes practically no profit), and is now owned by... Fandom. UniWiki, Miraheze and other farms don't have anywhere near the same SEO. The biggest competitor is... Google. Notice how they often have a little profile on the right if you look for things? Yeah, that's enough info for a lot of people to not click links to Fandom, or even Wikipedia.

Ads as a source of income has been dying out for some time. Adpocalypse is real, as ad sellers finally discovered tons of people block ads. So websites have to diversify their revenue streams. Fandom tried it with Featured Video (as big video ads mean less ads on the page for the same income) but that wasn't a success based on a multitude of factors. Aside from the acquisition of Gamepedia, Fandom also owns the rest of Curse - including popular fan sites like DnD Beyond. They also own ScreenJunkies (and HonestTrailers), they form partnerships with companies for promotions, they recently published their first video game Undermine (publishing: all the money, zero of the technical effort) and there is a swag store.