Coming from someone with an unstable source of income, and that can just barely get by: I'll take advertisements over a subscription/donation based model. Just don't flood your website with them. Or use shitty ad services. And don't make it an unusable experience cough britannica cough
Ironic how he chose an X in a strikingly similar style to the (old, unmaintained, and deprecated) Xorg. That was certainly a choice of all time.