Unfortunately true.

I see 16 coffees received. Assuming no private donations for simplicity, that’s $48. As an ads noob, how many sessions would a banner ad need to beat that?

My CPM is not great (not Google) and that's 25-30k impressions

Doesn't an ad require the user to bust out their credit card eventually?

Yes, nothing happens until you trade a dollar for something, but it does not have to be this site they spend money at.

Advertising isn't even about getting people to open their wallet, it's more about influencing their decision when they do go to spend money or make a purchase.

No? Advertising money is paid upfront. X number of impressions. You get paid a cut for hosting the ad. The ad might be a huge failure and lead to zero clickthrough or purchases. But the money has already been paid for the campaign.

Yea, but most advertisers come only after something went viral, not when you are building something and you try to say to potential advertiser: "this will go viral trust me bro". And such small viral things are usually short lived, by the time the advertisers come it will probably starts to die down. But yea, maybe he would have got a little more financial support than donations even if he puts up ads after it went viral.

Another way he could benefit from this is when people want his skills to build them similar things, so it's basically already an advertisement for his skills.

This is such a weird comment. Not all advertisement follows the influencer model. Banner ads have been funding small internet operations since before hacker news existed. Do we really don't have long term memories at all?

I don't know the terms, but there's what looks like a tasteful ad at the bottom.

> Looking for an architect who builds things that still look great even in November rain? Reach out to classical architect Jorian Egge.