I do not want enshittified software that creates a bogus need for a server in order to extract licensing fees from me. I prefer to pay for locally run software, paying in ad views if I have to because that’s the micropayment system we have ended up with.
So is there a path to an ethical, viable business model for the author?
From my perspective, those people who are taking this public client side code (not emulating any kind of server), and removing the privacy nightmare, are actually doing good for society. The software is more usable, more performant, and far more secure when they are done. The only harm is the authors ability to monetize.
I don't think it's possible to have a fully client-side web product and be able to enforce strict guardrails on the use of the code. Regardless of ethics, it's just not feasible. What you give up by delivering the full source code to the browser to render is control over the source code.
If the author wants more control over their source code, and easier monetization, they should compile a binary and distribute that. The guardrails protecting source code, duplication, and copyright infringement are much more clear. That's just the harsh reality of delivering source code to clients.
Stopping me from editing out parts I don’t want to run seems odd. If you want me to run certain things, do it on your own hardware.
This reminds me of the arguments against ad blockers. I don’t want people to force me to watch ads and not allow me to block them on my own machine.
Yes and no. An ethical business model for software in this world must be built on a long process of collecting good faith from customers, it just doesn't pay well enough compared to the ones that shatter said faith (adware, exploitation, dark patterns). I think the software moat will be more and more based on social capital. People are happy to pay for the software if they know for a fact that company/person behind it isn't being hostile to them. Look at Steam as an example of this. And you can always open source your code, and still make money through the means of good faith. Is it actually viable? I don't know. It depends on how much money you want to make.
The old model of server-locked licensed software is going the way of the dodo pretty fast right now, though people may not realize it if they're not hunting for alternatives to the old guard suites yet.
And while personally I agree with the commenter above you for personal reasons, I also think that the OP is missing that while the people who've ripped their js tool may have done so directly from their site, no one certainly has to any more: they can likely black-box something similar pretty quickly, at which point the author's DMCA moat is gone.
That is my preffered business mkdel for software development.
Adverts are likely a poor business model here - if you want to sell to professionals and creatives, the visual look of the software matters. It should really be subscription or one time licence
.. is something the author should have considered before deciding to publish AdWare.