I think that way back when this site was "free", and members were contributing to the site (basically they were the elves generating all the information), some of which were putting huge hours into the catalogs, were the glory days. Members were putting in all the info, and in return we got software that we could catalog all our comics. It was a reciprocal relationship that as members, we felt invested in/owners of this product. We weren't really, but it felt that way. Then the day it changed to a subscription based thing changed everything. Many people felt slighted/used. Personally, I didn't add that much to the software, but I was always on the forums daily. From then on, between that and the software never getting updated/fixed like it should, it drove members away from the site en masse, myself included. This was one of the best forum communities I've ever been on, but there is much better cataloging software.

I'm not sure making CCL a paid service started the decline. Aren't all the other collecting apps charging a fee?

Agreed, the continual non-delivery on promises soured a lot of people.

The other collecting apps were subscription based from the start as far as I know. I use CLZ now, and have paid for that from the start. Comic Collector Live was free from the start. Was touted as free, and was free while all the users (most) were doing all the scanning and inputting of the covers and basically being the free labor to grow the database. Then all of a sudden it became something that needed to be paid for, and to continue to add new comics into the software you had to pay. Not cool. Many people bailed, and the forums died. I was there, I remember it well.