>Why try all these convoluted schemes, instead of giving a straightforward way for people to tip? >They had 50 million views. If 0.01% of these visitors left a

>Why try all these convoluted schemes, instead of giving a straightforward way for people to tip? >They had 50 million views. If 0.01% of these visitors left a dollar, the author would've still come up way ahead over all the crazy schemes, even post-tax. Currently ads are the easiest way to monetize a not-well-known web property in the short-term. Long-term you can build a brand/trust/community/etc and leverage that into patreon/donations.