[tadfisher]

By "sell" you're implying that the sense of community is in some way diminished by selling advertising. I don't find this to be the case, unless it leads to a conflict of interest (i.e. SO deletes all Linux articles at the behest of Microsoft).

Now if you were to use "capitalize on", "monetize", or one of the many verbs that don't imply a transfer of ownership, then I would agree with you.