Unfortunately, like with social networking, there is an established freeness in the market, and so it is hard to charge people en masse. Fortunately for web search though, you can make plenty of money without tracking people, and so we've been profitable since 2014 and have no long-term viability issues.
w00t!! Is there some great public link that would be best to use in contacting the rare honorable advertiser who might advertise with DDG?
I'm thinking along the lines of a conversation about why it's unethical to feed Google / FB etc. given their fundamentally invasive business models and someone asks what to do otherwise, so I send them a great intro link that explains both that advertising on DDG is good ROI and more ethical…