Together with the push of this blog post I also pushed the code to remove Google Ads from this site.
I could make a heartfelt blog post about how using ads I’m able to provide you with this service for free, offering 100s of images for your YouTube channel at no cost. But honestly I hate ads, and I know you do too. I’ve been using an ad blocker for well over a decade and I know you’re probably too. Why should I judge my own visitors when I do the exact same thing.
This move was partially inspired by this blog post https://imlefthanded.com/2022/adblocking-people-and-non-adblocking-people-experience-a-totally-different-web/. The web has become a mess and I don’t want to contribute to it since I don’t really make much money from ads anymore anyway.
Ad blockers basically killed the revenue for this site, and that’s ok. Adapt or die. I’ve spent a lot of time optimizing the content hosting of this site to make it as cheap and performant as possible. Of course hosting cost is nothing compared to the time I’ve put into this project. But again it’s okay, it’s a great learning experience and has helped me figure out a few different technical things that I was then able to apply in my work.
With the move to remove ads, I started to accept clients for custom banners https://www.ytgraphics.com/custom-banner/ and maybe in the future I’ll build some premium features or options. But for now, enjoy this ad-free site!