So there are a bunch of different types of advertisements but, at the most basic level, you have impressions and clicks. Cost/impression is how much and advertiser pays every time someone lands on a page where their ad is loaded. Cost/click is how much and advertiser pays every time you click. These days, a lot of ads are pay per click (PPC). So, even if there were a bunch of ads, no one is going to pay you much for the impressions and even if we had a separate page, users would not only need to sit idle on the page, but actively click ads. And, seeing as the page is separate, I'm not sure if the advertisers would pay the standard rate for PPC. I'm not sure. I know there are ad networks and stuff and we may be able to get away from it for a bit. But it feels kinda shady? I don't know if that's the right word, seeing as we're talking about shitty online advertisers. So...that's about as much input I can give on the viability of this idea. I do like the idea though and I do like the thought process happening in this thread. Please, don't take my response as discouragement for throwing out ideas or anything.
So, wait, the bloggers etc who throw up little "please disable adblock so you can see my ads and keep my site running" -- they're talking solely about impressions, I assume, because no one who disables adblock is actually going to click the ads. Do they actually fund their site that way? Because if it's powerful enough to pay some of their server costs (even without clicks!) it could probably handle some of ours ... every little bit helps and it doesn't cost the users anything. Lemme know if I'm off.
See links below for the latest and greatest ad networks that explain the different styles and pay rates for ads. CPM = cost per THOUSAND impressions. So a $0.50 CPM would be 50 cents for 1000 impressions. Based on Hubski's pageviews yesterday, we would make a few bucks (literally) if we had those on every page you all viewed. $0.50 is really high though. Usually it's much, much less. The way I've said it up there isn't technically correct though. It's usually said, "the advertiser pays a $10 CPM to run 100,000 ads (a $1,000 total expense)." But then you have to look at what the RPM (revenue) actually is. Since you are using an ad network, the cost may be $1000 but you, as the "publisher" or whatever, only sees $500 because the network takes the other $500. [1] http://www.monetizemore.com/blog/10-best-ad-networks-2014/
Online advertisements are a crazy underworld. Based on the numbers I see randomly because of work or whatever, I don't understand how anyone makes any decent money of ads.
Advertising might be a good bet. There are many ad networks out there you can integrate with, and make some decent eCPMs depending on your traffic volumes.