Ask HN: Monetizing a Web Browser Extension
Let's say you have a proof-of-concept for a Web browser extension... which you just realized could pivot to something that would be very useful to a large number of people (and a bit disruptive of some prominent tech company)... But the hack value alone isn't worth the remaining work to pivot, you don't need open source stars on your CV, and you do need to pay rent, and ideally to have a viable indie startup. Two questions:

1. How do you make money with it?

* Ask for donations, while keeping it closed source? Maybe in the everyday usage part of the UI, since almost no one will see/remember the donation buttons/links in the extension store or documentation? (Does anyone make liveable money this way?)

* Ask for donations, while making it open source?

* Optional paid premium edition of the software, which adds more features than the free edition? (And reconcile that with the browser vendor's add-on store policies.)

* Optional paid subscription service, based on storing the user's data? (I don't really like this one, because I think the data should be private, and if not, the only practical option is to use the browser vendor's own questionable "sync" service.)

* Have an optional paid subscription service, based on providing access to a relevant bespoke database used by the extension? (For one of the two initial markets, there's naturally a curated/vetted bespoke data set that's changing in significant ways throughout each day. Maybe paying users pay for me to do the curation promptly, and they get access to that quickly, or they even get pre-vetted data, and free users get weekly snapshots of post-vetted data.)

* Keep the implementation closed, but demonstrate it to a particular tech company as a solution to a problem they have on their end, which users are attempting to mitigate with this add-on, and hope they buy my non-open implementation. (Though they could do it in-house, if they thought about it. Though there is evidence they are bad at executing on various software work that users have long wanted.)

* (Not by spending my time being appealing to investors, which will inevitably twist the extension to be appealing for an investor exit, probably against the interests of the users, and probably violating their privacy at some point.)

* (Not by selling out to one of the malware companies that buys popular browser extensions.)

2. How do you protect your work from being stolen by others? If not doing it as open source. (Since, knowing the modern Internet, the extension will be appealing to some people, who'll rush to copy&paste&tweak it for other markets, some of which I'd plan to grow into. And even to compete in my initial markets, by starting with what I made, and adding their own features to it, as if it were open source, without me being compensated. Also, LLM copyright violation laundering.)

* JS obfuscation, just to make the IP theft harder to do accidentally, or harder to rationalize?

* Try to put some of the secret sauce in Wasm, just for obfuscation?

* Pay bulldog lawyer more than I'm making, to enforce copyright?

In an ideal world, it would be open source, everyone would respect that, and key contributors would live comfortably due to the value they create for society (or just because they're part of society, and we're all warm-fuzzy socialists who like to spread the wealth around). But that doesn't often work out, so I'm trying to figure out whether this can be indie startup that won't be evil.