Comments:
I have to say, Jeff, I agree with you. The double-underscore tends to just blatantly scream ‘we’re in this for the money’. I visit a few forums that have implemented it, and have never once said to myself ‘damn, I wish I could go visit an advertiser right now!’
Because I scan articles with my mouse as my guide, I oftentimes get caught accidentally clicking on a link, which makes me feel even worse because now I’m just perpetuating the notion that this is a valuable ad form. I wonder how many advertisers monitor the duration a visitor from these linking services stays on their site?
Google needs nothing but money from advertisers. The problem is, as you say, if customers feel it cool or not.
It’s a payoff - you can’t have the innovation without some way of funding it. I think these text ads are a fair way of doing it - they’re not too obtrusive, and they don’’t cost the consumer anything directly.
What’s more, they’re Darwinian - if there’s no demand for the products they’re advertising they’ll soon fail and disappear. It doesn’t matter how many users unwittingly click on those ads - if they don’t buy, the ads don’t work.