Shucky, I don't see your point. Maybe AdSense isn't a secure source of income in the long term (especially for people who are gaming it) but for people making money in the interim, why stop? Or are you saying they should change their strategy to something more long term? When the day comes that Adsense stops delivering results for people, they will move on to something else. There are new opportunities in this field every day. By the way, my CTR is comfortably into the double digits. Are you saying that there is an inverse relationship between site CTR and the conversion ratio its traffic generates on advertisers' sites? If this is true, I would have expected Google to have incorporated this metric into its smart pricing algorithm by now.
Thats why you should never make your business only around adsense you will never know when your earning will suddenly disappear.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to make money with adsense or trying to maximize revenue with adsense as long as you're providing effective real estate and not some slum. No doubt Google will soon require AdSense publishers to register every domain they intend to put ads on and require a periodic review to enforce standards. The only effective way to reduce click fraud is to weed out the scum and prevent them from using the program. The difference between the idiot porn site owners and AdSense is that nobody is trying to put AdSense out of business. Adult PPC owners were trying to put each other out of business. Idiot porn site owners also had no standards seeing as they're peddling porn to begin with. If you want to make "lots of money" there is no shortage of porn affiliate programs that pay tens of dollars per sign up. There's a reason people aren't falling all over themselves trying to rack in money with those programs. Any homely slut can make money with porn. Just look at your friendly neighborhood prostitutes. Some people have standards and would rather make a small(er) amount legitimatly than run some sleazy business just to make a buck.
Why affiliate programs don't work: With adsense the ads are catered to your content. With affiliate programs your content must be catered to your ads. With AdSense you can make money from the curious. With affilate programs you can only make money if you encourage a direct sale. Marketers like affiliate programs because it guarentees they get paid when you get paid. There's zero risk on their end. With AdSense, marketers take the risk. Just like every other form of advertising. Just because a marketer spends 1 million on a super bowl ad or radio ad doesn't mean they're guarenteed 1 million in additional sales. I don't know why they expect any different from the net. And that's why I don't do affiliate programs.
Shucky, you make some good points but I also sense someone who has made a run at Adsense and hasn't had much success and, therefore, is declaring that it is an unwise choice for everyone else. I have had the opposite experience from you. I have succeeded beyond my expectations. Consistent double-digit CTR, highly relevant ads, high-paying clicks, and a monthly revenue that allows a nice lifestyle. But I also do paid ads, affiliate programs, and sell an information product as well because I know that Adsense won't last forever. However, I plan to squeeze as much as I can from it before it flops.
I agree with the original post that Adsense should be a compliment to one's site, not the primary reason for the site. The people making the most money with Adsense seem to have sites dedicated to something they're passionate about.
My take is that Google wants to give you the advantage to make some money out of your article, I think the main point is that Google wants your traffic. How long it can survive? I don't know.. but looks like everybody is following and looks like companies are doing more advertisement now on the internet rather on TVs.