I just had the most interesting conversation with my wife. As I'm outlining some of the specifics for a site that we are soon-to-be launching, she said to me: "I don't know how much some of those affilliate programs pay, but we need to have them. Some of them have pretty pictures that really round out the site. They are all over the place, and you just expect them to be there." Then she pointed out four or five of the programs she was talking about. It was really interesting to hear a regular user talking about affiliate programs and the fact that they not only appreciate the links, but that some of them have turned into expected content rather than advertising annoyances. It's a compliment to the people who developed the ads, and a strange phenominon regarding the growth of internet advertising in general. It went from stage 1) cool. Advertising on web sites. to stage 2) Too many ads all over the place. I hate ads. to stage 3) contextual text ads. Awesome concept, I like those better. to stage 4) cool. Advertising on web sites. I'm still of the mindset that good contextual advertising is a really great revenue generation tool, but I definitely am more aware now that in certain situations, affiliate advertising can be both more effective and better appreciated by the end user community.