Hm, difficult topic, I can see both sides. I'd be interested what would happen if npm decided to add a 'contains-ads' metadata field which package authors can s

Hm, difficult topic, I can see both sides. I'd be interested what would happen if npm decided to add a 'contains-ads' metadata field which package authors can set to true if they want to display adds. By default, those packages would not be listed when searched, and would not be be installable, except the user sets an 'accept ad-packages' flag for that (or all) packages (opt-in), on the client side. I guess the main problem is that developers (rightly, in my way) think that the usual suspects of suggested open-source funding methods which rely on deliberate actions from users (donations, etc.) are not really feasible. Double-licensed copy-left at least requires users to make a decicsion to acquire a private license in case it's necessary. But if you for some reason don't want to use copy-left, I guess the ad model would seem like an option, as it does not require the user to do anything. What I suggested above would take care of the fact that unwanted ads are pushed upon the user, and users would have to make an active decision to allow ads if they wanted to use a certain package. I'd be interested how many people who complain about this idea right now, would still be principled enough to not install such a package in the case where the package is high-quality, and there is no good alternative around...