I agree with the OP. Newbies seem to think than ANY site should make money by just slapping Google ads on it. Common sense doesn't seem to apply. The people who are making money with Adsense don't have just ANY site. A site that has no search engine ranking, no traffic, no worthwhile content, poorly-placed ads, ads not relevant to visitors' interests, and low-paying ads WILL MAKE NO MONEY. Why do they come to this forum asking WHY they are not making money???????? Maybe they just like hearing that there are some other people not making money too, so they don't feel so bad -- it's not their fault and has nothing to do with their site. It's just bad luck.
The reason why content-filled websites are losing money is because of so many MFA site around. Google has to monitor where their ads are displayed and perhaps ban the publishers of these MFA.
It's not always like that. For one of my site I have almost perfect placement, but my CTR is usually 0.15% Problem is, visitors find what they are searching for, why would anyone click on an ad?
Google ad sense is like California gold rush. During gold rush every tom,dick and harry came to west for search of gold, Every one had dream and very few had plan. Most of the people who went for search never made good money. The real money was made by the people who had concrete plan, the people who provided logistic support and tools. Same here just by building website and adding ads on it won't earn money. Today you need good amount of content on it and then next you need is how to drive traffic on it. I also started with web site with ads all over on it. It took me some time to realize what I was missing, I still consider myself newcomer in this business. Still lot to learn specially when site building is not your skill. Thx
Scratching what itches people by providing them with what they're looking for (good content + seo = you providing them with what they are looking for) is the way to Adsense gold