Hmm wow, didn't expect to suddenly bump into this thread, let alone a subreddit recently created by a former CAF member. I'm too Lazy to create a throw away account on reddit, so I'll share my thoughts here (anyone can feel feel to share it their if you want)
Let me preface first with, not all advertiser's are bad and not all forum member's are good either.
Here are some of my thoughts:
1) The conflict of interest is very inherent with CAF, considering the preferential treatment PAID advertiser's have. At first it's not so obvious, but the more time you spend on the forum, the more you begin to notice the preferential treatment being played out on the forums in the form of the 'unfair' bans, edits, deletions, etc. At the end of the day, advertiser's generally have the last say (or at least that's what the optics are to me) through their business relationship with Chillman and their team.
2) Self censorship is how you survive on CAF if you plan to contribute. I'm sure most of you can relate, but the amount of pressure to ensure you're in compliance with the 'rules' of the forums is very prevalent each time you want to post something because of the threat of a seemingly easy ban: this extends to even posting/discussing things which aren't violations of their 'rules', but can be arbitrarily be enforced on if the admin/mods/advertiser's have issues with it (usually anything that could be considered negative). I'm a rule follower and I try to stick to the rules since it's not my 'house' (even if I may disagree with some of them), but getting enforced on for things outside the the scope of the rules is what really opened my eyes despite considering myself as a member in good standing. CAF is heavily skewed positively in favor of advertiser's, which from my stand point makes the platform less trustworthy and less useful regarding information about those said providers: I now take information regarding them with more scrutiny than when I first started.
3) I was temporarily banned for allegedly 'giving faulty particulars but they never disclosed to me what it was: to throw salt in the wound, I was also accused of posing as a guru while doing so. For those of you who are on CAF, you probably have an inkling as to my handle on there, as well as my niche of being a public information aggregator. I don't intentionally give faulty particulars as it's not useful (and potentially harmful), but it can happen since I'm not error proof. I'd like to give myself some slack as I'm the only one to my knowledge doing what I do, but also because I've put a lot of work into it as my unique way of giving back. I suspect my banning more so had something to do with a 'well' reviewed/respected advertiser took issue with me sharing the same particulars that were publicly accessible either through their own ad and/or through another CAF members post : ex. a general NWSE location).
4) I appreciate other platforms like this that are more 'open' to discussions (the good and the bad) and don't take an entirely authoritarian approach. I hope places like this continue to grow and or newer platforms being built that would make CAF obsolete.