I have data from my own experiences, and while I won't release it, I will say that in our case subscription revenue is an order of magnitude higher than ad revenue.

I can possibly see my business becoming a full-time job from subscription revenue. I wouldn't even cover hosting costs from ads.

I guess in summary then, both are viable.

I've been making a living mainly from advertising income for just over 10 years now.

I've also tried getting users to pay for things, and it's orders of magnitude harder (for me).

I know there are some viable models that depend on ad revenue. It sounds like you've found some of them. That's very commendable.

In my experience, I wasn't very good at balancing my desire to serve the user's needs while also increasing ad revenue. The two goals seemed to be at odds. Either litter the page with ads and annoy the users, or make no money. Not to say it's not possible, just that I didn't like worrying about it or working on it.

I found that the subscription route was much easier. It aligned me perfectly with the users. All I had to do was please them and they would continue paying. No need to test optimal placement, worry about ad fatigue, ad blockers, etc, etc.

Not to say there aren't problems. Finding the right freemium feature balance, dealing with churn, and the horrible beast that is credit card processing are all pain points. But by and large, I have found it much easier to run a business based on subscriptions than ads.

That's cool, there's definitely pros and cons with both.

I've tried both, and even the time I spend with the charge backs and "I changed my mind and want a refund" aren't worth my time dealing with. It's just boring hassle.

I definitely agree, there's a balance between making easy ad money, and satisfying users. That's the hard bit - making the advertising useful enough, unobtrusive enough, but effective.

A lot of it perhaps depends on what sort of person you are. Making money from advertising is basically a numbers game, which you can just optimize iteratively. Selling subscriptions involves feelings, random users, and all those fuzzy things that I personally find a lot harder. I'm not a salesman and never have been. I don't like trying to charge people for something I'd never pay for.

OTOH, I would, and have paid for advertising, I have used websites that carry advertising obviously, so I'm just a lot more comfortable with that whole ecosystem. I can put myself in the position of all parties.

How about the fact that most successful businesses that have ever existed have charged for their products? Why is this data that can safely be ignored? It's the most proven business model out there.

Furthermore, it takes time to get good at anything. As you implied, making money from advertising is a skill, so how long does it take for you to get good enough at it to support yourself? Charging for things is simply more conservative. It's for people who don't want to risk going under while learning how to advertise.

There's pretty substantial industries that are built on advertising revenue - free papers, television, and the internet. Over the last 15 years countless websites have proven you can make substantial amounts of money from advertising income. It's a proven business model.

Getting paid subscribers isn't trivial either. You need to learn as you go with either approach.

"There's pretty substantial industries that are built on advertising revenue - free papers, television, and the internet."

In the beginning, it was easier to get advertising dollars for a website. Things have changed in the last couple of years. Advertisers want numbers. How much traffic are you getting and is it targeted? Sure, you could use adsense or some or service, but it will take thousands of unique, targeted visitors to make enough money for a business to survive. This takes lots of time and energy. If you aren't pulling in any other revenue, you will most likely go under.

Charging for a service or product doesn't require those numbers. You can have 100 people a day coming to your site and make 10X more in revenue.

I've been there.

Advertising was, for the most part, invented for traditional media (papers, radio, television). In many ways traditional media and the marketing industry are the same thing, so bringing that up as an example of a proven business model doesn't really say much.

As far as the Internet, how many publicly traded Internet companies actually make their profits primarily from advertising? Okay, all the search engines obviously, but who else?

I just don't think you can say that ad-revenue-based models are as proven of a business model as just selling things.

You seem to have something fundamentally against advertising, which is ok, it's a commonly held view on HN.

I just like to point out it's stupid to rule it out as a possible revenue stream every so often.

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound partizan. I have nothing against advertising, I was just trying to counter a point you had made. And you're correct - it's stupid to rule out any source of money.