My product is a service for other sites to re-use. I'm trying to decide whether I should make it advertising supported with revenue sharing (50/50 split with the webmaster) or make it totally free with no advertising. I can afford to offer it free. My primary goal right now is just to drive adoption. It seems intuitive (to me) that free would further that goal more than including advertising, but I've also realized that offering a new revenue stream for webmasters might be just as (or more) effective.
I'm afraid that letting individual webmasters choose would result in a muddled "brand image", with the people who want a new revenue stream (falsely) believing it's not good for that and the people who want it free believing (falsely) it's not available advertising-free.
I find myself flip-flopping trying to decide which direction to go. Any thoughts or advice?
If ads are your vision, then establishing trust with your consumer base is critical. They need to know that their information is not being used inappropriately.
You will also demonstrate value sooner to investors if you have an established revenue stream.
One option we have considered is establishing 2 brands, just for this purpose.
One can be ad based, and the other could be free or subscription based.