Every single day you'll see a bunch of "TOS violation" type posts and harbringer's of doom claiming the end of contextual advertising, I think Google could do itself a favor by making Adsense much harder to join. Thoughts?
No they will not make it harder, because then they couldn't keep all the extra advertisers money when they ban someone because they violated thier TOS. Plus, for the people that don't violate the TOS it would make it that much harder for them to get into the program. Right now all it takes is that you have a premade single page website. My friend wanted an account, applied for one, denied, because the site wasn't made yet. They bought the domain, put a single page on the website and reapplied and they got accepted.
Google definitely doesn't ban people and keep the money to themselves. Advertisers get refunded for fraudulent clicks, so Google doesn't get to keep the money.
That would defeat the genius of Adsense, which is quantity over quality. It's easier and more profitable to sign up 1 million small publishers than 1,000 big ones.