Comment by fn-mote

I don't believe that "ethical" and "ad supported" are compatible. Harvesting our private data and selling it to the tech-dystopia to further curate profiles about our every move can never be considered "ethical", imo.

From my perspective, those people who are taking this public client side code (not emulating any kind of server), and removing the privacy nightmare, are actually doing good for society. The software is more usable, more performant, and far more secure when they are done. The only harm is the authors ability to monetize.

I don't think it's possible to have a fully client-side web product and be able to enforce strict guardrails on the use of the code. Regardless of ethics, it's just not feasible. What you give up by delivering the full source code to the browser to render is control over the source code.

If the author wants more control over their source code, and easier monetization, they should compile a binary and distribute that. The guardrails protecting source code, duplication, and copyright infringement are much more clear. That's just the harsh reality of delivering source code to clients.

I don’t want people telling me I can’t modify code sent to my machine to execute.

Stopping me from editing out parts I don’t want to run seems odd. If you want me to run certain things, do it on your own hardware.

This reminds me of the arguments against ad blockers. I don’t want people to force me to watch ads and not allow me to block them on my own machine.

> So is there a path to an ethical, viable business model for the author?

Yes and no. An ethical business model for software in this world must be built on a long process of collecting good faith from customers, it just doesn't pay well enough compared to the ones that shatter said faith (adware, exploitation, dark patterns). I think the software moat will be more and more based on social capital. People are happy to pay for the software if they know for a fact that company/person behind it isn't being hostile to them. Look at Steam as an example of this. And you can always open source your code, and still make money through the means of good faith. Is it actually viable? I don't know. It depends on how much money you want to make.

Sure. One example of a path, that many people are already doing, is a system like Patreon.

The old model of server-locked licensed software is going the way of the dodo pretty fast right now, though people may not realize it if they're not hunting for alternatives to the old guard suites yet.

And while personally I agree with the commenter above you for personal reasons, I also think that the OP is missing that while the people who've ripped their js tool may have done so directly from their site, no one certainly has to any more: they can likely black-box something similar pretty quickly, at which point the author's DMCA moat is gone.

Charge upfront for development (patrons, sponsors, etc) /and charge for support and training resources. Open Source the code.

That is my preffered business mkdel for software development.

In an era of slop, quality is king. I honestly think the author should just ignore the cheap clones and continue selling quality software. The idea that the clones are perfect, bug free, or will continue to be maintained and hosted is a fantasy. There will always be people with low incomes in the third world trying very hard to get something for nothing/cheap, and they are the worst customers. No loyalty, highly intelligent, and will drop you immediately if a competing offer is 1% cheaper or offers what they need for free.

Adverts are likely a poor business model here - if you want to sell to professionals and creatives, the visual look of the software matters. It should really be subscription or one time licence

> is there a path to an ethical, viable business model for the author?

.. is something the author should have considered before deciding to publish AdWare.