Making a Living Online: This Post Brought to You By…A Revenue Model That No Longer Exists

Welcome back to my series on our history of making a living online. My aim with this series is to offer a behind-the-scenes tour of how the online economy has and does work, which also provides a fascinating window into how and why the internet has changed and looks the way it does today.

So far I’ve covered the rise and fall of banner ads and affiliate links. Today I’ll be getting into the wax and wane of another revenue model: sponsored content. Admittedly, this one hasn’t had as broad an impact on the overall landscape of the internet as the previous two, but I wanted to cover it because, of all the revenue models we’ve used, I actually think it was one of the best and is worthy of a revival.