I agree with your theory. I watched it happen on a number of forums for my car and motorcycle that I had followed for 10 years. The forums got rolled up by VerticalScope and soon after they "upgraded" the software for a better mobile experience and the content/quality is now garbage. It really destroyed the forums as a community and VS is just harvesting eyeballs now. Posts are repetitive questions or drive-by posts that go nowhere and do not ellicit any discussions. Nobody is posting intelligent or interesting content while on the can or waiting in line at the DMV, etc.