Well, people pay to have their ads placed in front of people. The theory is, the more people that see your product, the more people will use it and the more money you’ll make. Hopefully, the amount of money you make because of your advertising makes you more money than what it cost to do the advertising. TV and radio ads are easy. People are forced to watch/listen to a stream and theres nothing they can do to truly avoid the ad (yeah yeah DVRs blah blah). The Internet is quite different. Most ads are just hanging out on the side of the page. You aren’t forced to pay any attention to them. So how does Internet advertising work?

There are two main ways to pay for advertising on the Internet. You pay for every click on your ad, or you pay for every 1000 people that your ad is shown to. That seems simple enough, but who gets that advertising money? The company that serves up the ads? The company who owns the site where the ads are?

The answer is both. I imagine the ad company gets the lion’s share of that revenue but the website also gets some. There is a formula that has to do with the click-through-rate (a percentage of how many people click the ads compared to how many people are shown the ads). The better the click through rate, the more money the website gets.

When was the last time you clicked on an ad online? If nobody clicks the ads, the site doesn’t make money. Now thats not always a big deal. My website isn’t my day job. It’s a hobby that I use to learn new things. What about the millions of people whose website is their day job? How will they make any money? If you put up a pay wall, nobody will visit your site. If you put up ads, you might not actually make any money.

So what’s my point? Start clicking ads! If you like the website you’re visiting, click a link or two. The days of links installing viruses are over (mostly*). Obviously, you need to use common sense when clicking these ads. Avoid your favorite porn sites ad banners or the ads on your torrent tracker of choice. Most other sites are gonna be fine and you’re gonna help out the developer. You might even find something interesting. This doesn’t just apply to websites. Lots of software is going to an ad based model. Click those ads too, if you like the product.

Clicking ads is an easy way to throw the developer a bone and make them a little bit of money without having to spend any yourself. You can think of it like tipping your server at a restaurant. It’s a way to reward them for a job well done.

This may come off as an attempt to get people to click on my own ads. I am NOT doing that. That violates the AdSense terms of service. So, only click on my ads if you think they’re interesting.

*You’re clicking these ads at your own risk. There are still lots of shady people all over the Internet. Don’t be dumb.

The Relay Team: She really gets angry if she has to make more than one trip for drinks? Sorry I don’t have a list of every drink my table wants for the entire night, I guess I’m a jerk.

The Flagger: She doesn’t want me to call her “waitress”, ok thats fine. But what am I supposed to do when you don’t respond to m’am or miss? You don’t want people to be obnoxious about getting your attention, but if you ignore our other tries you leave us no choice.

Max T. Out: Don’t hand me a credit card that could be declined? I obviously didn’t think it would be declined, since I tried to pay with it. On a few occasions, Visa has canceled my card because of “suspicious charges” without notifying me. Just politely tell me the card didn’t work and I’ll give you another one or cash.

Mr. Money Bags: I understand that waitresses get paid crappy hourly wages. I also understand that your job is not rocket science. Even with bad tips you’ll end up making more than minimum wage. I can see that you’re working at least 3 other tables during the same hour that I’m in the restaurant, even if they only tip 3 bucks each thats still well over minimum wage.

When I tip, I start at 15% and adjust up or down according to how good the service was. If it was good I’ll usually bump it to 20, if it was bad then I’ll drop it to 10. According to some waiter friends, I’m a cheapskate. I’ve had waiter friends tip RIDICULOUS amounts (100% tips) because “they know how it is.” I don’t really understand that logic. I know how it is to develop software, but I still don’t buy every single iPhone app I see just because I “know how it is.”

I’m curious about the case where gratuity is automatically added to my bill. It has alway bothered me when this happens because then I have no good way of telling the server how bad they are. There have also been plenty of times where the added tip was far lower than what I would give normally. (I’m probably always going to tip at least a dollar even if my bill is only $2.50) Am I expected to give more in these cases?