Mr_Smithee - 11:12 am on May 28, 2008 (gmt 0)

A minimum click price would actually work in favor of publishers who don't set a minimum, if it is implemented as a filter: When you set a minimum and the inventory which was selected for that page impression doesn't match the limit, Google would not show higher paying ads but PSAs, blank space or your alternative ads. This would effectively take the page impression out of the ad space pool, thereby reduce the amount of ad space for which the ads compete and raise prices for the remaining ad space. The limit would particularly reduce the amount of ad space which is available for extremely low paying ads, which should increase the overall ad quality quite a bit.

Why would anyone set a minimum if that could only lower the revenue? For the same reason that we abhor junk ads: We'd rather keep a visitor on our site, where he can discover something which will make him return later, instead of losing him to a MFA for (less than) a cent. The question isn't whether I would rather have 10000 cents or not. The question is what I have to give to get 10000 cents.