alt Hacker NewsI operate an online publication that has been online for an amount of time that can be accurately described as "decades," though not quite as long as Salon.
My project had a brief window of modest profitability from about 2012 to 2020. Before and after that time, I've mostly operated at a break-even or a loss because I love doing it, and it gives me a sense of purpose, and the thought of packing it up is deeply depressing. But the past few years have been an extreme drought of donations, which leads to extreme drought in ambition and energy. I sometimes wonder if my mental health would improve if I turned out the lights and moved on to something else. I don't want to, but sometimes we humans fail to want what's good for us.
I'm sure it doesn't help that I reject advertising and rely solely on donations. But perhaps the only thing more depressing than shutting down is slapping ads on everything. Blah.
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I've done quite a few things that take time and i've avoided trying to make money even though people told me I should because I worried that as soon as I did I'd start feeling more obligated. Instead of this hobby I enjoy when I want I'd feel "some paid me, I owe them to work on it even if I don't feel like it" and that would rob my of something I currently enjoy.
Presuming your username is indicative of the publication, an anecdote for you: I had assumed the brand had been SEO clickbait acquired years and years ago, perhaps circa 2014 to 16. Maybe it was the unavoidable politicism seeping into everything or perhaps it just got caught up in the miasma. I later learned that DI was still putting out real human being shit, but for too long during a certain period I could not tell true from targeted and at least from my perspective DI got sent to the same bin as Lifehacker and other Gawker acquisitions.
I am sorry. I hope things work out.
Ads don't have to be inherently unethical, but the current industry is. "Pay me to put your .png file here, if you're not a scam" is fine. The problem is, nobody will pay for that (but you can still try).