Responding to a call for help

Just responded to a call for help - advice on how to monetize a popular site. A public toilet is busy, but it's hard to make money from it, etc.

How to get worth is dependent on all kinds of "metrics". Values, capacity to wait are in there.

Seems the pattern we most see repeated in the Internet era is the indirect revenue model. Not selling software, but giving it away and selling support services; not selling papers and advertising but building good, free content and paying for it with almost invisible, opt-out advertising content only.

For the buyer - or reader - there is a false presumption of 'free.' Content, of course, is never value free, so one picks ones sites wisely, or not. Selling to people who want free stuff that feels good is a sure way to make money. There are ways and means to achieve this. Go for smash and grab if you like, but where the producer has "the primacy of give " in mind, some real, long term benefit given away, (e.g. Amazon and Google) there is room for long term growth.

This does not resolve the problem of how to monetize traffic. But people who pay attention are lining up to hear a story. What do you say? Something about doing no evil.

The more I go into this the more I'm convinced real success is all about good ethics.