My opinion. Adsense is for total douchebags. I used to be a douche when I spend years trying to build up my adsense but after 5yrs and excellent profit from google(about $40 a day) google came out with the penguin update and overnight I was earning 50cents a day. Google felt it would be nice to rank a bunch of hollywood and corporation type sites so I have to move over. Screw google, screw adsense, and if you are with adsense you are a douche like I was.
Well I was a douche bag for 9 years, but thanksfully they kicked me out last july, otherwise I'd still be a douche bag.
It's unfortunate your web site suffered a "demotion" due to the update. This is why I never follow trends. While everyone was focused on Directory Submissions with the same keywords and overly stuffing keywords to attempt to get a site to rank well I just focused on quality content, valid html, and quality links (not quantity). I was not affected by Penguin. Adsense isn't for "douche bags" as you put it. In fact, your rant really has nothing to do with Adense but rather Google's update on their search algorithm.
I can understand your frustration with the Penguin updates, but I don't think it's fair to call everyone who has found (and continues to find) success through Adsense as "douche bags". I do, however, think that you raise a valid point on our over-dependency on a single platform. The internet is constantly evolving and changing, and sticking to a single income stream is dangerous, especially if it's completely tied to someone else's platform (in this case Adsense). The same is true for the PPC marketers when their businesses were damaged by the updates on the Adwords platform, or to backlink networks when Google went on their most recent witch-hunt. You can't put all your eggs in one basket and expect to have sustained success. To borrow a phrase from SEO gurus, you need to diversify. That way, if one basket gets robbed of all its eggs, you still have three or four more to choose from.
Learn something from this, don't put all your eggs in one basket. The same goes for money or traffic as well, if one source dries up you still have other sources. Best of luck to you!
Those who disagree with the sentiments of the thread post all seem to be doing well from adsense. These are the people who should not count their sheep as they too can be banned by Uncle Google and then no amount of compliments and advice will suffice them. Google's a fickle idiot who banns the best and the honest and allows scammers to thrive. It seems everyone gets banned in the end.
I got banned and their appeal process is a pure joke, I wasted my time composing two emails (no begging, just wanting to sort out the situation or at least understand it) and what I got were copy and paste emails which didn't address anything in my message. I mean the copy and paste were unrelated to my situation. That gives me the feeling that the ones who send those copy and paste did it between two wanking sessions on youporn, or that they employ cheap monkeys in their policy enforcement team at google.. I don't understand how it can be handled in a worse way.. perhaps not sending any reply at all? I'm not even sure..
That is true. Adsense earnings are going down everyday. Other ad networks are even worse. This leaves only affiliates if you can make them convert. I believe Amazon Associates is very good if your site is getting lots of traffic.
Looks like you focussed to much on one niche / type of websites. Is all part of the game, you never know if you stable income will stay or drop the next day.