“Somehow, I’m not getting my concept through.”
Your message got through but its not workable: there are inherent costs to going commercial as stated by JimR:
“Now we could go commercial. We could sell ads. We could sell subscriptions or memberships, We could sell t-shirts and hats. But the moment we do, we invite scrutiny and copyright lawsuits. Before going commercial we would have to scrub our archives of any possible copyright violations. And we’d have to tighten up our current operations to make sure no one posts anything that could get us into trouble with any publisher of stories, photos, images, etc. And with sharks like Righthaven swimming around, there will always be room for trouble. And going commercial still wouldn’t guarantee enough income to build and maintain a paid staff, bullet proof software, redundant systems, etc.”
Jim posted his thoughts on advertising in post #588, then reiterated them directly to me upthread. I understand his position now.