AO3 is a noncommercial fandom space. These used to be more common. They were never the majority - free website hosting used to (mostly still does) require ads of some sort, and most fanfic archives were free website things.
However, some were self-hosted, and some of those didn't have ads. (Because why the fuck would you have ads on your Favorite 80s Cop Show Archive? Ads would just be drawing the wrong kind of attention. You had a link for people to donate to help cover the server costs, but mostly the owner covered them alone.)
Noncommercial spaces are much rarer than they used to be. Noncommercial creative spaces are almost unknown now.
There are a lot of reasons AO3 is noncommercial. Copyright protection is part of it - since financial consideration is one of the factors used to decide if something is infringing, "this makes no money" helps claim it is not infringing. (It's not a guarantee. If you make 50000 copies of a hot new movie and give them away for free, claiming "but I didn't make money" will not protect you in court.) However, this is irrelevant for some fandoms. (Shakespeare fanfic does not have any copyright issuse.)
Part of the reason is so people can practice and share their art without trying to make it profitable. It changes how you write, how you draw, when you are trying to get other people to pay you for it. And there's nothing wrong with that - but there's a whole internet full of places for you to sell your creative work. This one is for sharing without monetary concerns.
And one really big issue that all the 'but I just wanna put up my patreon link!!!' people miss: They only want to advertise their patreon/kofi/etsy/Amazon books/etc on AO3 because nobody else is doing it.
Why not advertise on Twitter/X? On Tumblr? On Instagram? Bluesky, Facebook, Threads, Discord, and so on?
Because in all those spaces, you're one voice among thousands yelling "LOOK AT ME! BUY MY STUFF!!!"
They don't want advertising to be allowed at AO3. They want to be the *only* person advertising at AO3. Or at least the only one in their fandom. They don't want every other fic to be "half a chapter of text, followed by a three-paragraph Where To Buy My Stuff insert, followed by the rest of the chapter."
But none of those are the True Core Issue.
The True Core Issue is: Commercial links/mentions on AO3 are against the rules.
If you don't like the rules, you don't have to post at AO3.
Some people who volunteer for the OTW will occasionally try to explain why that rule was made. But that part doesn't matter. If you believe the rule is stupid, or their legal analysis is flawed, or the community dynamic wouldn't drastically change if people started advertising -
You're still not allowed to advertise on AO3.
You may want to know why, and some of us will try to explain.
But this is not a "gotcha" situation where, if you believe you have succeeded in explaining that all our "why" are irrelevant, you get to ignore the rule.
This is not a gov't setting where you can break the rule and then appeal to a higher court if you didn't like the judgment. There is no higher court. If you break the rule repeatedly, you'll be banned and your fic will be removed.
You don't need to understand or agree with the "why" in order to follow the rule.
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