One person said that was his motive for his comments, and so many others have repeated the same. Why not take his comments at face value, and if there's truth to it, learn from it, and if there's not, just discard it.
As far as making money with his website, do you have any idea what bandwidth costs on a popular site? The fact that Sean has gone to charging for access to part of his site (but NOT his forums, mind you) is evidence that his site is doing well and that he needs to recoup some of the expenses for offering streaming audio of his show. That's more than Rush gives us on his site, BTW.
I believe these guys (Sean and Rush, etc) are in the business they are in because they have a gift for communicating and they have a passion for spreading the truth. BUT, it's still a business and they're going to have ads and promote their books and charge for some stuff so that they CAN keep on doing what they're doing. On the other hand, one doesn't have to pay to benefit from their shows. I haven't paid a dime for all that I've benefited from both Sean and Rush, and I'm very grateful that they're both in the business that they're in.
Point well made, but my thought about 'screwing a good friend in FR to reach his goal' is the part that bothers me. He didn't need to slam FR.