europeforvisitors - 5:07 pm on Feb 20, 2005 (gmt 0)

All the tactics mentioned here are viable and legitamate ways of making money.

You could use the same argument to defend e-mail spam or even telemarketing. :-)

But let's not get bogged down in yet another discussion of the greater good vs. opportunism or "do unto others..." vs. "look out for number one." Instead, let's get back to the question of "What kind of site does it take to make enough to live off of?" If you plan to live off that site indefinitely, you need to think about related questions such as "What happens if my AdSense income goes away?", "Am I building for the short term or the long term?", and "Will the site allow me to earn income from multiple revenue streams?"

I happen to prefer the "long term" and "multiple revenue streams" approach, but that doesn't have to mean an editorial site like mine. It could mean an e-commerce site, a high-quality "value-added" affiliate site, or a community site, for example. With any of those, the owner would still have a way to earn a living (albeit at a reduced level) if AdSense suddenly tightened its rules, made big adjustments to its "smart pricing" algorithm, gave filters or controls to advertisers, or made other changes that could have a negative impact on a given site's AdSense revenues.