I, as somebody who already owns quite the backlog who doesn’t buy/download many games, would also throw some money directly at itch.io on about a yearly basis, given the opportunity.
Just to clarify: I think it’s a good idea having ads showing for unregistered users when download free games - because it’s fairer (“more fair”?). Just a clearer separation from the page content would be nice. I don’t even care about kids/children - it’s a bad look for itch if ads and real content are so close together. (Although free online hosting services do exactly the same. It is kind of hard to blame leafo for doing the same thing.)