I wish there was, and I considered charging users but it becomes a lot more complex at least from a technical point of view.

The other big reason for not trying was that the biggest user base was in India, where my website was fairly popular for a number of years. This meant that most of the users didn’t have as much disposable income as average users in western countries.

Ads are annoying, but they are an incredibly easy and effective way of monetizing a popular website really. If they are placed correctly they shouldn’t even impact the ux that much.