I spent 10 years in the biz ..
While yes, it may be not-for-profit .. ( I personally don't know, can't say although I would suspect things are not as altruistic as one might think) .. Commercial would be defined, IMO, as any site that accepts ad revenue and is not setup as a non-profit organization .. and if ECF decides to fully monetize itself at some point, I have no problem with that .. in fact, one of the major sites I have modded in is very much monetized yet offers those with paid membership ad free browsing ..
I can agree with this sentiment completely. I do think however that many people don't realize just how much cost can go into maintaining such a site. So hopefully our little back-and-forth here will prevent another one of these identical threads in the future. Probably not though.