Why are some music forums shutting down?

[mr dave]

Originally Posted by Psy-Fi

A lot of them have lost so many members and have such little traffic, I'm not surprised they're shutting down.
It probably comes down to a lack of interest vs operating expenses.

This is the most likely issue. The other is outside pressure to limit file sharing and / or users who abuse the servers to those ends. Like Tore mentions as well, Facebook is likely the other big reason for a decline in users which results in less (or even negative) profit for the site owners.