Yup, I agree. I don't have the time or energy to do it myself, but that would be a great goal. I actually admire them for choosing to have no ads, but it does get kind of difficult to maintain interest for something that you're just doing as a side project. Trust me, I know....
I definitely feel monetizing a blog a bit should be interesting. You don't need to use that money to pay your rent, just using that money to buy gems or stuff like that. But even if you only use it to buy gems, you'd probably feel more motivated that way.
Nobody hates money. And running a blog properly is complicated and time consuming. So I share lucypirates opinion.
Edit: the key part is not being greedy. Neogaf like ads, non intrusive stuff.
Ads in some way or form are a necessity, so they have to be planned out in placement of design and what you actually run. There is no problem in say running additional partnerships with retailers to work in discounts towards One Piece merchandise. It's all doable, but again it's leg work. And if you are insistent on no ads whatsoever, you need a secondary plan. It doesn't have to be Wikipedia, but as an example, they're run on donations. But, overall one needs a goal.
The biggest hurdle for this game is on-going content and getting to a place of comfort with updates planned. And arguably for that there is up to a year's worth out there to already prep/write for. One person can't do it, otherwise you'll start to hate it and the game! And that's no fun.
With OPTC in particular, the content awareness, strategy and planning is all player driven. But if you're a website, how do you get that content? Are you playing the Japanese version early and data mining that way? Are you taking your content from some place else? Team compositions, being an encyclopedia for drop locations and evolutions, to being up to date with server time on special events like turtle time, etc. Any dedicated OPTC website has to do all of that in the very least. Where one could stand out is the community aspect with how all that content in your website and in-game, marry together, when players can't talk to one another in-game. That's the platform.
To add onto what Ralch is saying, it's not about greed, it's monetary common sense. Domain, server/hosting costs, etc. You aren't playing the game as a job and it really shouldn't be but if some of the streamers out there can get their pulls all funded by viewers? I mean, what's the worst that could happen.
