Advertisements seemed to be the way until recently, where it doesn’t seem like advertising is at all a valid way to make money.
Crypto mining, while good tech, was abused far too much to where any ethical solutions made are just going to be tacked into the same category as the unethical ones.
Subscriptions are popping up a lot more, but I’m not sure that’s the best way to do things.
Donations seems like a valid way, but that relies on people actually caring enough to find something.
For the sake of discussion, let’s talk about smaller websites/businesses as opposed to huge companies like The Hard R, Amazon, etc…
How do you think the web should be monetized?
Paid, ethical sponsorships with relevant companies to your particular audience seems to be a good bet (or selling your own product).
Things like Louis Rossmann’s (now defunct thanks to Amazon) affiliate links to computer repair products he fully endorses, or a hyper-niche prosumer home server retailer like Art of Server who creates highly informative tutorials on second hand hardware modifications and also has a storefront from which you can buy these devices pre-flashed and ready to go in a similar setup to what he is showing are both good revenue streams if you can get a strong enough following that sees your wisdom for what it is. I doubt it’s enough to make a living on, but as a side hustle it’s probably not that bad if you get a strong enough core audience.
Cookie cutter shilling just makes me suspicious of the product being sold, especially if they seem to be following a script. It comes off immediately as deceptive, if not completely dishonest. I see Raid: Shadow Legends and SurfShark as inherently risky/adversarial just because of how ubiquitous their marketing is, even in sectors that shouldn’t give a shit about them.