Enough with the Adsense!

Yesterday I read this provocative post from the logorrheic Trent at The Simple Dollar, and I was simply incensed. Not at payperpost, but at Trent, and all the rest of you who stick advertisements on your blogs.
I went though all the blogs on my blogroll yesterday, and put asterisks by the ones that lacked advertisements. Can you believe it, of the 40 or so blogs on my roll, there were only TEN that lacked advertisements? All the rest had “sponsored links,” Adsense, or Amazon Associate links, basically something upon which clicking would create income for the blogger. This is ridiculous, and for the majority of you, it’s probably more of a hindrance than a help.

After reading Trent’s post, and seeing his ads, I pointed out he is just as much a whore as the payperposters, and he deleted my comment. This doesn’t make the point less valid though, and in fact may underscore that among a lot of bloggers, Adsense is a sore spot. It seems ironic that among a crowd of people who talk about money, they get all worked up about… money.
In an eerie coincidence of timing (since I drafted this article last night), JLP posts about a blog scraper out there, and rather than wanting to cite the guy for a DMCA violation and being a general nuisance, he seems to be primarily concerned with getting the guy’s Adsense account suspended. Huh? You care less about the fact that someone is stealing your content and more concerned that he might make 3 cents on an errant ad click? Are we from the same universe?

I really really don’t see the allure of Adsense. Aside from a few of the most popular blogs, I doubt many of you are making very much from it, probably not even enough to pay for your webhosting, assuming you even *need* to pay for webhosting. Who actually clicks on the ads? Several web browsers come with a plugin where you can turn off third-party scripts, and that includes Adsense, of course. Most of the bloggers who post their monthly Adsense revenues earn less than $20/month. Some people seem to think that more ads = more money, and one can scarcely find their content for all the ads, reminiscent of an about.com page.
Have you ever bothered to visit the sorts of sites that appear in your Adsense columns? An amazing number of them are dubious at best, and outright scams at worst. Would you really condone these sorts of sites if you weren’t getting paid to do so? “Be a millionaire in two years!” “Quick and secure payday loans!” “Make $20,000 on eBay!” “Easy Money at Home!” I wouldn’t condone or patronize them even if they paid me. They seem to run contrary to basic fiscal responsibility, and any sane person claiming to support financial responsibility would hate to be associated with them.
Isn’t it hypocritical to have advertisements on blogs about responsible spending or getting out of debt? You may be trying to get out of debt, but you’re tacitly encouraging your readers to take on more debt by visiting your sponsors and (presumably, since that’s the point of having ads) spending money on whatever they’re hawking.

Ramit Sethi had a great post in October 2005 about monetizing blogs. Take a minute to read it, then click around and see how many people are doing just what Ramit talks about. If you are a new blogger, consider the effect of ads on your blog, if you have them. They are absolutely deleterious to the “customer experience,” as Ramit calls it. If you really want to make money, add a tip jar, a la Casey Serin. It’s no less subtle than Adsense, and spares your readers from obnoxious, dubious, and unwanted ads.