I think that even a discrete ad on Hacker News home page will result in revenue. This revenue could be used to fund some charity, e.g. related to CS education. Ads data could also be made public and used as a case study.
I would be very strongly opposed to this idea. Advertising is a distraction, and one of the great things about HN is the lack of distraction. The site layout is simple, the stories are relevant.<p>The last thing I want from HN is noise. The signal/noise ratio is fantastic here. Let's keep it that way.<p>It's often the case that people want to get the public (in this case the HN public) to accept some ill in the name of charity. I truly believe that members here should make private donations to charities if they wish to, there's no need for us to become another site covered in ads for charities no matter how closely 'related' they are to the content.
We're a tech savvy bunch who know how to use AdBlock. Yes, some of choose not to block ads, but at a lower rate than on the average site.<p>Why not donate directly to a charity of your choice, instead of asking PG to sell your attention and donate the proceeds to a charity of his choice?<p>How useful would the ad data be?<p>Would having ads on HN detract from the usefulness of HN as a marketing tool for YC?
People have to click the ads for revenue to be made. This being HN, an aggregator for people who spend most of their day on computers(& the web), I think it's safe to say most of us have become immune to ads, and the effort(however minimal) in setting up\managing ads would ultimately be futile. What HN could possibly do is have an affiliate link when a product is featured; I think most people would make the conscious effort to buy via HN to support it.
Better yet -<p>Allow reddit-style promoted posts on relevant subjects. Make them behave like those locked "XYZ is hiring" posts - start on top and drop a couple of positions per hour. Except allow the comments too. Limit the number of spots to one or two per day and auction them off.<p>That should greatly help with launching projects on HN, which seems to be an emerging trend that is not likely to be going anywhere soon.
I would pay a small sum to read / post to HN, especially if I can avoid ads. I don't care what they do with that money.<p>I do not use an ad-blocker. I wouldn't if HN got ads, but it'd be a shame.