I agree that is true, if you want to have a thriving community. The question is whether Vice needs to host a thriving community on their own site.
Why not leave community management to the experts? For example, the dialogue here on HN--which is a well-managed community--will be way more substantive and productive than it would have been on Vice's site.
If the community isn't hosted on your site, it can't drive ad revenue as people involved in discussion reload the site to see new comments. People want to own the community because it brings traffic, and they're not interested in driving that traffic to someone else's website. It's a sort of cargo cult.
Why not leave community management to the experts? For example, the dialogue here on HN--which is a well-managed community--will be way more substantive and productive than it would have been on Vice's site.