Voice of reason. The "ad-free version of X" never worked... unless it's self-hosted and enthusiast-made. Here, we still see people wanting to make profit for th

Voice of reason. The "ad-free version of X" never worked... unless it's self-hosted and enthusiast-made. Here, we still see people wanting to make profit for themselves and the VCs and that's fine, but this is not how you build an "(ad-)free version of X"! Look at http://withknown.com http://withknown.com - it's open-source and still offers a free hosted version. Will it survive? Who knows, but worst-case scenario, they can let people self-host in a case of running out of money to support hosting and only use the old URL for CNAMEs costing them nothing. So, no open-source, no, thanks!