I disagree. You should get paid for your work - either through ads or an in app purchase to remove the ads. If someone is not willing to pay you money or look at ads, they aren't your customer.
Developers - especially mobile developers - have to stop devaluing themselves.
Honestly this idea that you can still pump out fairly simple add-supported/paid apps as a path to paying your bills is crazy unless you are making the next flappy bird.
By making it open source you could have a much easier time getting interviews at companies that will gladly pay a salary that far exceeds what you could make on one non-unicorn app.
I would have a private Git repo on VSTS (free), put a link to the app on my resume and let them know that I would be more than willing to go through both my code and my project plan.
It doesn't have to pay all of your bills but if at least made some beer money, it's better than nothing. Part of being a developer should be learning how to monetize.
It's not that OP shouldn't be making money, it's that ads would be the wrong way to make money.
The HN crowd is not going to put up with huge ad banners when there are plenty of HN reader apps without them.
There already are several non-advertisement clients though. You can't charge to get a feature another client already has unless your other features are worth that cost
If he is writing the app so he can learn and just be a corporate drone (no judgement, I'm a proud corporate drone) then give it away for free. If he wants to learn how to be an entrepreneur, he should do an assessment of what's out there and find a competitive advantage that would make people willing to pay some money.
Yes it has. Its ridiculous to suggest that someone who has recently felt empowered will be unable to turn that energy into employment or income. Empowerement definitely pays bills, it does it all the time for people. Empowerement is often the first real tangible step someone has to getting an income.
Developers - especially mobile developers - have to stop devaluing themselves.