Do you have any thoughts on the financial impact of self-hosting vs using something like Google Ads? I'd assume you mostly made that choice for ethical reasons, right?
I noticed that my ad blocker doesn't block your ads, and like you mentioned, they don't interrupt the browsing experience. They're almost like those in a high-quality paper magazine!
We initially used Google Ads, but phased them out 6-7 years ago because the ads were lower quality than we wanted and missing a big chunk of the ad sale due to Google's fees.
If I remember correctly, we used Google and self-hosted for a while, but eventually it made financial sense to replace the Google Ad slots with self-hosted so we were able to capture the full ad sale.
Several years on, I am really happy with the decision and it is great to not be subject to the whims of an ad marketplace we have no control over.
I noticed that my ad blocker doesn't block your ads, and like you mentioned, they don't interrupt the browsing experience. They're almost like those in a high-quality paper magazine!