@Cyril said:
Ads are bad. First and more importantly imho : It uselessly cost a lots of resources (bandwidth, local and remote computer to provide and display it). It encourages people to buy what they do not need and to live a way which cannot be sustained by our only planet Earth. Also they are often not respectful of your privacy (tracking, establishing a profile etc…).
Total money and resource cost of ads and its consequence is higher for user than just giving money directly...
sound familiar to the Wikipedia founding case, and I have possible alternatives to fight ethically, but remember that Richard Small say that software free is for freedom.
here some solutions to ads:
+Forum might /should restrict the ads to just offer computers and courses online, with these methods google and other websites not might track you, or simply offer ethical products like System76 with some link.
+_Exist some extension browser for Firefox and Chromium that allows isolating a determinate domain called container: _https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search/?platform=windows&q=container
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sessionbox-free-multi-log/megbklhjamjbcafknkgmokldgolkdfig?hl=en
... a container extension makes that, for example, google info just can read since a google site.
+the twitch idea is new for me, I like it, maybe some developer or designer might do stream when they are working, that might be similar to an online course, sound interesting for me.
+and finally if ads can not be profitable, for example for small projects, I might suggest to find sponsor, I mean create their app, use a standard format, IFC, and might create Patreon, Kickstarter, or any crowdfunding options, for add new features.
-for another part, other models that are learned in the university, it just scares users, like the mixed licenses, this happen a lot in the electrical design software, such methods are the hell for students Dynamo runtime
... but maybe all my suggestions will be ignored, then maybe the developers should talk in their forums directly for suggestions.