We should think about the advertising model before its too late and it gets shoved onto us. I think each community should get its own advertiser and they get a stick post on each post which is limited to 300 chars and one url.
Its simple, non intrusive and we can make it a bidding. 80 % of the proceeds should go to the maintenance of the instance, 20 % should go to the moderators of the instance.
Would warner brothers want this for 100 $ on movies ? I think so …
In fact if I see a product being heavily advertised I am less likely to buy it. Not only because it is annoying, but also because I know a significant percentage of the purchase price is just paying for more advertisement instead of actually relating to the quality of the product.
I make a mental note to avoid a company and their products whenever I see an ad. If I want your thing, I will seek it out. You wanna entice me to buy it? Go make your blogpost demonstrating why yours is better than the alternatives I’m looking at.