[mattmaroon]

I am sure they will be pilloried for this, but I never begrudge a company trying to come up with a sustainable revenue model. Nobody ever thought "I sure wish I saw more ads online" and people gripe every time they pop up somewhere new, and yet everyone wants free services. So I say good luck brothers.

[bayesianhorse]

Free service does not mean "riddled with advertisement".

A lot of the sites I consider high-value don't do advertising at all. Khanacademy, Coursera, Hackernews, Github ...

It's like saying open source software is created by students trying to avoid license fees.

[mattmaroon]

That's kind of silly to point out not for profits and freemiym services. Not all products lend themselves to one of those.

[bayesianhorse]

It's kind of silly to point out that not all products lend themselves to any particular model, isn't that right?

I have the impression that would-be-creators are rushing towards specific advertising or pay-for-access models too quickly.

[mattmaroon]

They've been in business for over 7 years. I know because I was in the same YC batch as them. They have not rushed into anything.