if i am not mistaken, ads used to pay a lot more. for example, a friend of mine used to run a website and was able to pay for the hosting costs with a few adsense ads and modest traffic. apparently that is not possible anymore.<p>there are problems with ad blockers and malicious ads. i simply dont understand why these things are a problem. why do we not see simple ads, static images with no java script, implemented in such a way that ad blockers cant really block them? i mean, if your ad is some image inserted somewhere in one or all of your web pages, how could an ad blocker know which image it was out of the many which are probably going to be present on any given page? and why are people not willing to pay for such an advertising vector? people visit the website, they will see the ad like a billboard or any other traditional ad, so why is it not possible to charge traditional rates? its very confusing to me so if anyone with experience in the matter could weigh in that would be very nice.