Exactly. People don't get that getting rid of ads helps only the big players (because they can require subscriptions), while hurting the little guys.
People may subscribe for big newspapers and such, but they won't subscribe to a lot of smaller blogs, for example, on various blogging platforms, which do provide value, but they are not big enough to warrant a subscription.
Ads solve this case and I haven't heard any viable alternative for them for small players.
You can see this in action on HN when people constantly use big publications like The Verge and NYT when complaining about ads or suggesting that everyone needs to find a new business model.
Meanwhile my forum now costs more money than it brings in. It's been giving teens a place to write collaborative fiction for over 10 years now.
Seems a bit sad that we'll eventually just be left with the sites big enough to live without ads. We're in the middle of a great centralization which you'd think most of HN would be wary of.
Instead I see the opposite, people basically welcoming it with a bloodlust in their eyes. What they don't realize is that their favorite examples of ad-dependent websites cast around HN like The Verge will be the last to die.
People may subscribe for big newspapers and such, but they won't subscribe to a lot of smaller blogs, for example, on various blogging platforms, which do provide value, but they are not big enough to warrant a subscription.
Ads solve this case and I haven't heard any viable alternative for them for small players.