My reasons against that

• we'd be directly giving money to Reddit
• users dislike the places they see ads about, and it would appear extra desperate because of the point above
• money is better spent supporting developers and content creators on here

Not to mention that Reddit will probably shut that down

That doesn't mean we don't do anything though. A number of subreddits continue to have automod messages and pinned posts directing people elsewhere. There are a lot of people on Reddit who WANT things to succeed here.

So some other ways to help.

On Reddit:

• work with subreddits to set up parallel communities here, and ease the transition of people moving

• find subreddits that benefit from backups / fediverse communities, and work with them to improve things

On the fediverse:

• write up guides and update existing resources to help newcomers

• Post interesting content on the fediverse. People use things they get value out of, and new people won't stay if things are quiet here. Set up an RSS feed, share the cool videos you see, write about your thoughts on casual communities.

Specifically financial:

• Donate to the development of a project you like. If you can, reoccurring donations provide stability for the developers to work on things.

• Donate to the instances that are running the services and platforms

TLDR:

• Money can help, but paying for ads isn't the way to go (at least not yet)