Completely not connected to my own personal interest[*], I've begun to think about Internet ads in the same way that some people used to think about Business Reply Mail: if they want to pay to have me send them back a stack of my other junk mail, more power to 'em. I doubt honestly that very many people make any kind of money from these ads, but the people who run the ads _do_ pay a not insignificant amount of money to have the ads served. I remember a guy who published the 800 number (free to callers, expensive to the answerer) of some reactionary freak who had a dial-a-speech service ("Press 1 to hear me rant about the New World Order; press 2 to hear me rant about abortion ...") and encouraged people to call the number from a pay phone and then put the receiver down and walk away, ensuring he'd get charged for the full 15 minute call.
I've been wondering why this doesn't catch on with Internet ads.
/jordan
[*] The value of this list, it's nearly nine years of archives, Doug's excellent free book, and his radio show podcasts could never be matched by people clicking through ads. I don't expect it to, it's not why I host it, and that's my disclaimer. Full disclosure: in the 3.5 years since we put ads on the LBO archives, Google has sent checks totalling about 1.5 months of my ISP bill :)