Apart from you question not being in good faith (because there have always been business models to support publishing and providing services that do not rely on adverstising and these models are well known), the main point is that they do not have to provide the answer to this question. Push advertising is unethical and culturally toxic and thus is not justifiable using the simple pragmatic argument of "It pays the bills". You can't justify unethical behaviour using a simple pragmatic argument. (Quite obviously; this shouldn't even need to be said.)
> there have always been business models to support publishing and providing services that do not rely on adverstising and these models are well known
I am sure that these models exist, I just don't know about them because I haven't done the research. It would be easier for everyone if you just listed a few viable funding models for a search giant.
> Push advertising is unethical and culturally toxic
That is your opinion, and not one that most people share — most people think that advertising is an acceptable trade-off for good search results. If you want to persuade people of anything, you'll have to meet them where they're at, either by convincing us first that advertising is "unethical and culturally toxic", or by using some other argument.
What it's essentially saying is that the publisher should be able to continue to act unethically in polluting minds by pushing ads but also collect extra money from people who object to their pollution. IOW, "I'm going to keep polluting but if you pay me then I won't pollute in your personal space." Well actually, I care about your society wide pollution too. Just stop polluting.
On principle I will never give money to a website that runs this sort of policy.
TANSTAAFL shouldn't have to be said either, and yet here we are.
This would be an interesting ethical discussion if it weren't predicated on a conversation every parent has with their 14 year old.
Yes, I know you want this thing, but things don't just magically appear. It all takes effort. Are you going to contribute? Or do you just expect other people to do stuff for you or you'll throw a tantrum? You are getting older now and this is not acceptable behavior.
The problem is not ads. The problem is that people want things for free. If you get things for free you're not a customer. If you're neither the customer or the vendor in the transaction, then you are the product. Ads are by far the most obvious form of this but there are others actors who would be much, much worse if they were the customer. If 'somebody worse than ads' are the only customers, then they will just get more brazen. Like loan shark brazen, or possibly police state brazen.
We need a way to pay for things that's not a paywall, and not a surveillance state. Given the other conversations in this thread, this company is trying to be neither. Whether they succeed or have ulterior motives I have no way of knowing.
If you have the name recognition of Wikipedia or PBS, you can to a fund raising campaign every year. You can seek funding from a foundation of some sort. If you're just a few people with an MVP? Neither of those will work for you. (I suppose maybe GoFundMe might, but I wouldn't count on it.)
