Wikipedia, Linux, Blender, Firefox are all what?

This might be survivorship bias talking. I do not have any examples with me but I am quite sure, there are a lot more projects that ended up dead.

Most projects end up dead, ad supported or not. I don't think that's an argument one way or another.

They are not Ad based models proving non ad based models exist and work especially in the domain of free rider/collective action problems.

I could have sworn I’ve seen ads for Firefox. I know I’ve seen ads in Firefox, some placed by Mozilla, but I could have sworn I’ve seen ads for Firefox not in Firefox. (This is nearly impossible to Google for due to all the hits for ad-blockers.)

Mozilla spends 10s of millions every year on “advertising and promotion” per their financial statements, though they have other things to advertise about than just Firefox.

Didn't Linus make an announcement on Usenet when he started the project. A form of advertising.

I would call them the exceptions that prove the rule.

That's not what that means.

It means a sign saying "no blue cars" is the exception proving the rule that non-blue cars are allowed.

Kind of like special relativity is an exception to Newtonian mechanics?

It's good to know the rules, but you shouldn't live your life by them.