You can sell more to advertizing companies if you claim more members?

true

I'm not so sure, what matters most to advertisers are current visitors...

I guess it's just that Nir has probably much better things to do than spring cleaning the database, especially when that would not improve user experience by any significant margin.

Also, if someone wants to come back after a while, no need for the mods to recheck the profile/pic.

(advertising... not zing...) Edit button... please...

I think after 4-5 years people do not even remember to be registered, plus, they are likely to live thousands of miles away. So I stick to your first "explanation" ;-)

Yea, delete them!

What's the problem with having lots of inactive accounts hanging around here? I'm wondering what could be a motivation to delete them.

All:

As Paul said, advertisers don't care about the number of total members. They care about active ones who can see their advertising and click on it, and it's these numbers advertisers track.

Paul and Monica were spot on in listing the reasons we don't delete non-actives: it doesn't improve user experience by much, but creates more work now and if the sleepers decides to re-active later. 

Nir, glocals guy

Yeah, is your looking to advertise, you want to know basic daily login membership, weekly, etc. is simple math, and if an company want to advertise, they will benchmark those logins and the target 'potential client base' and sign. If they do otherwise, they just throwing their money , and im sure Nir and Oded would be fine with that :)

Well I think if you use your 'algorithims' you can see whos been inactive for say any member that is 24-48months inactive, you could just move the profiles in a Blocked account, just like when you temporarily ban someone. They you or that person can reactivate the account? so no data lost but numbers and searches are more 'active members', just like many other social networks, email services, etc.

just a thought