Tough tough problem. No one wants to pay for anything online.
Partially because we’re all cheap bastards.
Partially because we’re worried that even “micropayments” would spiral out of control.
Or any variant system I can brainstorm is prone to abuse – like if people paid a BBC-esque flat fee for web content that was then divided across the sites you used… (Or what if there was a flat fee, but you got to select how it was apportioned across…) eh, just speculating anyway, there’s nothing like that on the horizon.

Of course that reminds me of one of my least favorite anti-ads arguments “but I’m already paying for Internet!” , like that money had anyway of making it to the content provider. (Of course, on mobile, that represents a more legitimate gripe about bandwidth…) Kirk

Good stuff from Kirk on the subject of online ads.

And more from Neil–

What will happen if you place an advert on the site? Probably nothing, if it is a self-hosted advert. In fact, if it is for a company or product which you rate, and which is of relevance to the readers, it may even prove valuable to the advertiser.

Stick in a placeholder which gets filled by an ad based on user stalking, served up by an ad network and with mechanisms for tracking visitor behaviour and, yes, is fully expect it to be blocked.

There is definitely a degree of “tidying up the page”, but a small, relevant, static ad may not put off too many regular readers. But an ad which is the product of stalkig may well do.

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