I generally love JM's postings, but it's clear that he did not actually read much of the article at all. Unfortunately that cheapens the discussion.
For what it's worth, I think that Sebastien's reasoning for not having advertising on his site should be summarized, screen printed and dropped propaganda style from airplanes over the financial districts of the world so that when bored fund guys hire us to build web properties, they might be slightly more likely to have a non-advertising business model in mind.
What Sebastian is advocating is a method of hard bargaining that may or may not lead to brand building. What Jacques is advocating is being careful about not crossing the line between bargaining and delusions about your own market worth. It's a perilous balance to maintain if you're playing this game and falling either way might ruin you.
Actually, he's not advocating bargaining of any firmness. He's saying that one's personal brand (or dignity, or whatever) should have a minimum price that is not necessarily $0.01. In his case, he's decided that the amount he'd earn with advertising isn't worth the cheapening of his brand it would entail.
It's shocking to me how many people commenting here (plus Jacques) totally misunderstood Sebastian's post.
"I think I'll add some ads to this blog just to make the point that if you can't afford to leave money on the table you probably shouldn't."
Indeed, that's almost verbatim what Sebastian said - but for the added insight that if you CAN afford to leave the money on the table, doing so will make you more than that in the long run. JM missed that insight.
For what it's worth, I think that Sebastien's reasoning for not having advertising on his site should be summarized, screen printed and dropped propaganda style from airplanes over the financial districts of the world so that when bored fund guys hire us to build web properties, they might be slightly more likely to have a non-advertising business model in mind.