Monetizing small projects is a fool's game, because the amount that application authors make is tiny. Ad platforms on the other hand, they certainly benefit, b

Monetizing small projects is a fool's game, because the amount that application authors make is tiny. Ad platforms on the other hand, they certainly benefit, because they capture the long tail of applications and get access to a wealth of information. (in fact, if anything, the fact that applications are only used by a small userbase is a benefit to ad platforms -- because it provides precise detail about the kind of applications that particular users have installed) If your application becomes extremely successful, then certainly you could consider adding monetizing strategies to pay yourself and the infrastructure costs of the service. But what are those costs? They can, in many cases, be tiny - especially if you allow your application to run on the user's own device. Monetizing using advertising doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me for most software authors, and I think it's an unfair system where authors and users both lose out.