Just a few observations:
Here it is the 22nd of the month and there are 25 posts from less than 10 different users. Years ago, this forum would have 25 posts in a few days or even one day. Being Captain Obvious here, many people have given up on Adsense as a source of revenue, self included.
I complained to Google that on days in which my traffic was good (more impressions), my RPM would drop, so it didn't make much difference in terms of revenue whether I had 10,000 impressions or 3,000. They made sure my revenue would amount to peanuts. Nice algorithm, cheats you into poverty. Naturally, I received no response from them.
Google censors everything and anything they don't like. Being politically conservative, I am constantly blocked, shadow-banned and shut down by the almighty Google-bot.
Since about two years ago, revenue has been horrible for many users. Judging by the members posting here, very few from the good old days - pre-2022, and especially, pre-2010, are still around. I suspect many have given up. Some may have abandoned their websites. Google, being essentially a monopoly, has taken people's work and #*$!ized it to suit their needs, which, I suspect, in a manner similar to the U.S. federal government, is not about providing relevant search results, but servicing their agenda of greed, subjugation, and disinformation.
Google recently lost an anti-trust case to the government. I just noticed it and didn't read any articles about it because I know they're in bed with the government and the likelihood of anything being done to correct their monopolistic situation ranges from slim to none.
Rather than promoting free dissemination of information, Google strives to suppress anything they disagree with. It's gotten to the point - for me, at least - that it's become a moral question, essentially, that by continuing to carry Adsense on my site, I am promoting their agenda. I have been moving gradually away from Adsense, despite there being no realistic alternatives. I am now accelerating that process to eliminate all of their ads from my sites by the end of 2024.
For what it's worth, I am probably not going to stop working on my sites, or stop writing or publishing. That would be a victory for Google and their allies in the censorship regime. Eventually, if there's anything left of free markets in the U.S., an alternative may emerge, though it's likely to take a long time.
Here's a story from years back (1980s) that may be instructive, when I was in the newspaper business (yes, real ink, paper, physical distribution, etc.). My biggest rival in the business was Gannett, the people who publish USA Today and many other newspapers. As I grew over the course of about 5-6 years and was actually becoming a threat to their local monopoly, I began to encounter advertisers dropping out. More than a few of them told me that a Gannett representative told them that if they continued advertising with me, they would never be allowed to advertise with Gannett. It was an open threat and many were frightened by it to the point of cancelling advertising with my newspaper. The same thing has probably already occurred in regard to any potential rival to Adsense, which has even more leverage. They will stop at nothing to secure and keep their monopoly intact.
So, this isn't necessarily good-bye to this forum. I don't post often because I don't see the point and because I sometimes grate on people in negative ways. I just try to post what I think is true, and the truth is Google doesn't want small businesses to prosper or even survive. They want an internet made up of their buddies and big corporations. I warned about the potential for abuse years ago, when I told people that Google would use the information created by millions of webmasters to enrich themselves. Well, they've done it. Now, how do millions of webmasters (maybe more like hundreds of thousands) fight back?
Good luck to all in these trying times.
BTW: Don't criticize Google. Your revenue will drop to almost nothing as your website is scrubbed from the internet.
