itch.io

Again, thank you for the detailed and considerate response. Perhaps this is solvable from a graphics design/affordances approach and can avoid almost any engineering costs. I mocked up a version that shows what I'm thinking. Separating the ad with white space and a bar so it is not associated with user's "where do I click?" thinking. Add a redundant but visually dominant Download button with an icon that suggests its purpose. That way even if the user can't or won't read they are less likely to click on the wrong thing even if it is a phishing button. Last, a bit of text explaining the purpose of the ad so it doesn't look like Itch is going the way of Sourceforge, Neopets, or Download.com and that this is a limited and mutable feature of the site. Logged in users can retain the old download window, it is perfect as is. Perhaps some version of this would work?

I appreciate you and the invaluable service Itch provides to the indie community. Thank you for your hard work and attention to this.

re 

I think itch should allow for donations. If you guys didn't have the open revenue sharing model I think it would be weird but as you do I think it would be okay. Especially if it's something simple like getting a badge on the forums and a role in the Discord server. Maybe there could even be a cool little tag on games that says the dev supports itch.io. Regardless though even if it doesn't bring in a lot of extra income it's better then nothing.

For cost saving measures I'd look into web torrent. You might be able to make downloads torrent based which would save a lot of bandwidth costs. You could also offer a subscription if someone doesn't want to use a torrent for a few dollars. Another cost saving measure would be to use hashes to prevent duplicated files being stored.

Random revenue ideas:

• itch.io based merch
• let people pay to use their own domain name you could do a whole thing with that where you effectively host indie dev's game sites and charge for it
• let devs advertise their game on the website
• let users buy rewards for games or unlock custom emojis for the comment/forum section on game pages (obviously you'll only get what the dev is sharing though)
• while this wouldn't bring in revenue immediately I think letting users split the revenue from sales (similar to a bundle but on a single page) could attract a lot people as it makes working with teams a lot easier
• I saw there was work for some api that allowed for in app purchases if that was finished it could help with revenue 
• letting users donate directly to devs could help (something Patreon-esk I suppose)
• you could attract more people by promoting games that can only be found on the platform 
• this one is crazy but the community could create something similar to Steam OS, that could attract more attention . You could then sell flash drives with it installed or raspberry pi's

Anyways I know that's a lot of random ideas but I hope you guys figure something out because I love itch.io and I don't think I would be even attempting game dev without it.

Also is there anyway I can help?