Boards are not a thing of the past. People communicating privately, and being more selective of what they post publicly, is the current reality, especially on boards like GFY that are public with no verification process other than an email.
What's hurting the industry is organized crime (posing as paying members) stealing from members areas to post on specific filesharing & tube sites, in a specific way. People still pay for porn, and when you can have access to the most recent updates ( within hours ) from every porn site on the internet, who are you going to pay?
The criminals have caused all the low hanging fruit to sell their sites cheap or close shop, the good news is they don't realize the value and fortitude of who's left. The criminals got complacent. To this day they don't realize who's tracking what they do, where, and how much information they've gathered.
It's important to remember, and honor, the customer base out there that subscribes to the actually paysite. A big thank you to all of them, they are what sustains us and enable us to move forward through these challenging times.