Fast forward to now, my wife has a new job. I still hate ads, but I have become accustomed to that extra $300 each month and have had trouble talking myself into taking it down.
The moral here? I am working on that myself.
My joke since moving has been "I like my morals and will stick to them as long as it's convenient."
It's a tough crossroads. I am applying for work I really care about far away while my SO may still have a path to finish. No good answers, but we'll stick together through thick and thin.
I'm not really a tech insider here, more of an engineer in search of discourse more stimulating than reddit. Also, I think discourse with wealthy and influential people is one of the few ways I have to attempt to better the world.
I've kind of thought about the moral of it myself. I ended up integrating Stripe to let people remove the ads. For a blog that might not make sense, but for a solitaire website where some people play an hour or two a day, it makes sense. I think the lowest pricing I had was a one-time fee of $5 and basically no-one uses it. I'm super surpriced how few people use it. But if you won't pay for playing, you're gonna get ads . And from what I can see, people are fine with this arrangement.
2: replace the ad with an ad for your thing
You don't even have to offer any perks. In my experience and in those I've heard, most people don't care about "rewards." They come to support. Just make a few tiers since people tend to pledge along them.