I need to build a business on Coracle if I want to keep working on it. One thing that makes this hard is that I refuse to make my users the product. I will not sell your data.

However, what does everyone think of a referral/ad model? Sponsored results in search, sponsored relay suggestions, etc, with an option to pay to turn them off. Is this unethical?

Of course, my ideal business model would be a freemium service — get the basics for free, pay for some bells and whistles. But that would require much more development effort to get started.

Now I'm just brain dumping, but I guess I could start a freemium model on a purely volunteer basis, and issue a badge or something for supporters, ala patreon/kickstarter?

What do you guys think?