Episode 66: Eric Holscher of Read The Docs, Write The Docs, and Ethical Ads

Panelists Eric Berry | Justin Dorfman | Alyssa Wright | Richard Littauer Guest Eric Holscher Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! On today’s episode, our special guest is Eric Holscher, cofounder of Read the Docs and Write the Docs. As part of his work with Read the Docs, he created a privacy-focused ad network called EthicalAds. Eric will tell us all about Read the Docs, Write the Docs, how EthicalAds started, and why the Ads work. We also discuss challenges since EthicalAds launched, how things have worked with ethical advertising in our current economic recession, and what ad sales look like when it’s ethical. Download this episode now to find out more! [00:01:31] Eric tells us the history of how he co-founded Read the Docs, who funds the company, and he tells us about Write the Docs. [00:04:33] Eric fills us in on how he’s been doing meetups this year and how they’ve been going. He mentions using a tool called “Hopin” for the online events. [00:06:00] We learn how EthicalAds started. [00:08:21] Eric tells us what the reaction was when he introduced Ads on the platform. Also, he explains the rules that he’s applied and what ethical advertising is. [00:12:02] Eric explains what unethical advertising is and we hear his thoughts on if the Ads are scalable and long-term feasible to keep holding on to that early nineties style newspaper advertising. He also talks about Maciej Ceglowski from Pinboard and Doc Searls from Linux Journal. [00:17:26] Richard asks Eric if he has an opinion on how he deals with advertising itself being unethical. [00:19:49] Alyssa asks Eric if he thinks ethical advertising can be particularly useful for the sustainability of other open source work in projects. [00:21:41] Eric tells us the biggest challenges since launching EthicalAds six months ago. [00:23:49] With the economic recession in 2020, Alyssa wonders what the need was and what has this work looked like for EthicalAds in the current economics we’re living in. [00:26:29] Richard asks Eric if any maintainers have been able to