I'm in. Hopefully that won't upset the "no sucking manufacturer dong" ethos.
But hey, what am I saying? You guys tell us when stuff is crap (a lot of the newer members don't remember when Marv hated our stuff.) You helped us get better. Hopefully the cash will help you get better.
With respect to monetization, I've had long and painful experience with it on the agency side. Here's an honest breakdown of what works and what does not:
1. As many have already mentioned, affiliate links to Amazon (and everywhere else you can set them up) are an absolutely painless way to make money to support the site. Reminding people, repeatedly, that buying through the links supports the site is in no way bad taste and is strongly encouraged. The creation of a "shop here and support this site" section with your top products is also a great idea.
2. Adsense won't pay much at the current site size without hugely invasive ads-everywhere type placement, which makes me (an ad agency guy) want to hurl. Same thing with popovers and offers and crap like that. Shoot me if I ever propose such things.
3. Beyond that, it gets murky, because now we're talking conventional ads or sponsorship (ads) or corporate sponsored forums (which most smart companies don't like because it's a lot of effort, and start getting into the question of "do they get special moderation" and stuff like that.) Personally, I think a sponsorship model can be managed, but I am biased. I would have to think carefully about sponsoring, though, since there are already too many people out there who think the pirates are Schiit Shill Central.
Anyway, those are a few thoughts of an unrepentant (but at least somewhat ethical, I hope) marketer.
