Under what conditions would you be OK with ads on your lemmy instance?

None

Yea. The question is completely absurd. There is no such thing as "reasonable ads". It is also completely against the philosophy of the project and the developers would never agree to it.

You may as well just browse Reddit at that point.
- Also, ads are very much "give an inch, take a mile" in nature. Once you open that door and have say a tiny banner ad, then it's like "well that didn't do much harm, let's do a slightly bigger one", then before you know it it you have sponsored posts, sidebar ads, videos and all that nonsense.
  
  It's just one of the avenues where enshittification creeps in IMO.
- I see two misconceptions here.
  
  First off, there is such a thing as reasonable ads, namely, ones you want to see. Sometimes you are looking to purchase something or some service, and you have to go out of your way to look for options. Ads for what you want, when you want is ideal. However, the point where advertising goes to far is trying to solve this problem by learning everything about you in order to effectively read your mind. That's where it becomes unreasonable for me.
  
  Second, the philosophy of lemmy (and federation in general) was not to tell all instances and users of said instances how they should use the internet, it was to give them the freedom to use the internet however they want, without sacrificing the connection with others who want to use it differently. It would not be equivalent to using reddit, because an instance that serves ads would have to compete with other instances who don't. Whereas reddit is a walled garden where you are forced to take their ads along with their content, if a lemmy instance with ads became too "unreasonable", the users have nothing to lose by leaving, the content is all federated.
  
  The reality is, it's not a matter if, but when we will see instances who try to fund themselves using ads. They're free to serve them and you're free to defederate from them in protest. That is the lemmy philosophy.
The second I see ads on an instance, I'm off it. Fuck that noise.

I'd rather just donate.

I'm happy when an instance owner just says how much it costs to run a server, how many people actually manage it and how much time they spend to keep it running. I also like it when they just come out and say "we need this much money to keep things running every month, every year, etc"

Then I just donate and there are more a dozen ways people can send and recieve donations.

I don't mind paying for things and services if the person or people I'm donating to are just honest about what they need and why, especially if it's a service I use often.
Same, but sometimes it's not possible due to the different payment methods that don't work the same accross different countries.
- It's unlikely ads would bring in any significant amount of money from them se people, in that case.
What if people who donate no longer see ads? Problem solved.
- No, this is rewarding the implementation of ads and can't be thought of as donating anymore. You are paying to remove ads thus giving them money for having added ads to the site.
- then it's not really donating

There are no circumstances under which I would be okay with it. Including ads means there is a chance that content is removed to appease advertisers.

I will happily donate to my instance once they start accepting donations.

Under no conditions. Don't try to normalize ads.

Bro, who are these people trying to normalise ads? Do y'all work for ad-companies or have you been brainwashed enough to believe ads are the only way? Ads are a braindead problem for another problem looking for a solution.

Fuck ads. Write that 50 times. If isn't through your skull after 50, write another 50 and repeat until it is. Fuck ads.

I get that you probably aren't the brightest, but you do realize not everyone shares your same irrational hatred of ads, no?
- I get that you don't understand the ads business is propped up on halfwits like you, but you do realize that this isn't reddit, right?

I would much rather see the "Daily costs donation bar" that Reddit used to have

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none

Straightforward funding requests from the instance are just fine. Advertisements can gargle a cactus.

I'd be okay with devs promoting their own FOSS software, etc. And seeing donation buttons every now and then. No trad ads plz. We have enough of those.

In my view, the problem isn't monetizing an instance, but that ads right now are fundamentally problematic. I don't know of a way to introduce ads that wouldn't be intrusive, invade user privacy, introduce bad motives for admins, and just be generally unpleasant. If money is a problem, I think a subscriber model would be better suited for the platform rather than taking any step to normalize ads.

Never, i would leave my instance immediately. Thankfully i dont believe this will ever happen. If admins need funds community members will donate. Through mutual cooperation we can keep these spaces free of the commercial bullshit that has infested every other faet of our lives.

NO ADS! These platforms were created so that you won't see any ads ever. If you want to support the instances or platforms, you can make a donation via Patreon/ BuyMeACoffee or what they use. Here is a list of links for some platforms:

Nah. I don't plan to ever have ads. Hardly any users so my nice little single server will be fine for years to come and I can afford it no problem. If somehow I got a lot of users, I'd likely just close registration rather than ads. I hate ads!

Transparency - where the ads come from, how the revenue is used, etc.
the ads are safe and appropriate and follow the same rules as posts and comments
the ads are clearly labeled or otherwise visually distinct and not disguised as user generated content
the ads do not make up more than 10% of the displayed content (by any metric (screen space, text, bytes, etc.)
the ads are in like/kind to the surrounding content (e.g. if the community is text only, so are the ads, if the community allows images but not video, then the ads cannot move, etc.)
no tracking
the ads can be removed via subscription or donation
no double dipping (e.g. charging for access and still showing ads.) Members who support the instance should not see ads, members who see ads should not be required to pay.
a transparent removal process for problematic ads

Fuck ads, don't normalize this. I left Reddit because of enshittification, and putting ads on lemmy is just another first step towards that inevitable end. I'll just spin my own instance back up. I had one running but I took it down to avoid the influx of CSAM on some instances.

It should be opt-in.

Virtually nobody opts in, and power users opt out. If someone is running ads, they presumably want to make money, and they'll only be making money if it's on by default
- Yes. That is the point.
- exactly. This is the only type of ads I'd tolerate

None whatsoever

Never

Everyone sucks at business. Everyone. Businesses is an art form. You can do anything you want with it.

Check this out. Free isn’t a real thing. You cannot build a site in your free time and then give it away for free and expect people to pick up the slack.

You need to charge people. So you need a secure way to handle information and payments.

NOBODY wants ads anywhere anymore. It’s mind poison from another time.

Creator owned platforms is where its at.

Nebula.tv is a great example.

If you cannot figure out a pay schedule then hire or collaborate with someone who does.

I am all for ways to increase revenue for devs, I have donated. However ads are anti privacy by default. A way for people that don't want to donate but still want to support? How about a list of referral links people can use? Good middle ground.

Visually distinct, not possible to mix it up with content
No more than 10% of visual space
Fixed - meaning directly agreed by with instance admin, no algorithmic ads or ad exchanges
No tracking, no cookies. simply an image and a link embedded in the site

I’d rather do monthly payments than having ads. Oh wait, I’m already contributing monthly.

Opt-in ads. Disabled by default, but gives the user the choice to support the instance if they do not want to (or can't) provide a monetary donation.

I don't want ads any other way.

None

Any lemmy instance using ads instead of donations should be abandoned to wither and die. It should get globally defederated... because any users ok with ads are not users we want on the fediverse.

None

None.

Zero. There are other ways to monetize I’ll gladly accept first.

I think for a shitpost instance a custom ad network banner ads with memes and shitposts would be make sense. What I mean by that is that on geocities as well as some small internet sites there’s “custom ad networks” where they basically rely on donations and or just random people submitting “ads” that normally tend to be just links to their site, weird obscure memes, animal pictures, etc.

I think real ads for the sake of advertising on lemmy wouldn’t really be acceptable in any form, but shitposting ads have potential imo

That sounds great. I remember seeing really old sites with these.

The last 2 of your points.

Never

I'm not okay with ads anywhere at all under any conditions.

I already donate to my Mastodon instance, if my instance needs or wants money for any reason, they should set up a donation button and I'll subscribe. Which will give them a lot more money than they would ever make from showing me ads. We should normalize removing all ads from the internet, forever.

Unless you are singlehandedly funding an instance, especially a sizable one, whether they make more from you in particular isn't relevant so much as per average user

None. Dont need ads on my own instance

Despite how necessary it is to pay for hosting, ads have ruined nearly all browsing experiences save one site where the ads were maintained by the site themselves and could be purchased by the users to advertise threads.

I doubt any of the instances have a mod team large enough to want to maintain dedicated “For Sale” comms and make sure nothing dubious is going on.

Without tracking/privacy invasion, related to the board/community, non animated, not excessive

I don't mind ads as long as they're not following me around. Show me ads based on the community that I'm browsing or something if you want better targeting

hell no, never. start a patreon

If a website needs ads to thrive, it needs ads to thrive. I don't look forward to playing the role of both the beggar and the chooser. As I explain here, under the exact circumstances of today, I'm not afraid to say I'm judgy when someone mentions adblock usage.

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- Different things work for everyone, especially depending on the demographics. That's an administrative thing, I am a guest.

I will never use any product that sells ads. I don't want to see them, period. I will never buy anything in the ads, you're wasting your time.

i wouldn’t mind sacrificing the first post on my home feed as a dedicated advertising spot (clearly marked), if it helps keep things running.

Nothing programmatic. I'm fine with "sponsorships", but once you've hit moving images or dynamic ad insertion you've crossed the line.

none, unless airline ads but way prefer no ads

I would block that instance.

If you want to market, buy physical billboard space.

If it does not track you. Eg a normal jpeg image as an ad. It can't track you(but you may not be able to block it