I have never understood, not from the very early 90s and the very early days of the graphical web and online advertising, WHY anyone ever accepted the proposal

I have never understood, not from the very early 90s and the very early days of the graphical web and online advertising, WHY anyone ever accepted the proposal from advertisers that they pay either based on clicks or based on completed sales or things like that. It is insane. It is based on a fundamental lack of understanding of what advertisement IS and where its value lies. Advertisers have, in my opinion, been getting a free ride for decades. They get brand recognition for free. They get goodwill for free. They get customers who know they even exist for free. They get knowledge of their product in front of customers for free. They don't pay a cent for any of it. And content providers just let this happen, in exchange for being paid based on driving clicks. Do you think television networks would have said "sure, OK" if advertisers proposed they only pay for TV spots based on how many people showed up at the store and said they saw the ad and it was what specifically made them go to the store? Do you think radio stations would have bent over and said 'sure, sounds like a cool idea' to advertisers wanting to only pay based on how many customers came in and knew their jingle? Would newspapers have accepted only getting paid based on how many people said they saw the ad in the paper? OF COURSE NOT. Because every single one of those customers who 'glided over it' or 'didn't see it' or didn't 'act' on it was influenced by it. And it is wrong to give that away for free. When an ad appears on a website a user is visiting of their own free will and desire, the simple mechanics of how the human brain works creates a vague positive impression for the brand advertised even when no one clicks at all. Advertisers know this. It's how they sell themselves to businesses. And they rely on content providing sites being either blissfully or willfully ignorant of this fact. I can't help but chuckle at the timing, though. Print publications shut down text in deference to video because advertisers want it right at the same time the only video platform that is viable or ever likely to be barring a very large lawsuit for anticompetitive practices, YouTube, running at gigantic losses for more than a decade guaranteeing competition is impossible, has decided it is disgusted by the prospect of large numbers of people making a reasonable living from producing video content. They want to reform themselves in a more traditional more centralized model where a small number of tightly controlled producers of content will get rich, and the rest will either die off or be starved. Eric Schmidt touched on the idea that he sees Google's role in forcibly controlling (he would call it 'guiding') human culture as very important. He is rich, therefore he is Better and it is right for him to take the reigns and protect the seething masses from themselves. The same old mentality Old Money has operated on for centuries coming to the nouveau riche and technorati. A mass migration of advertisers to YouTube will make Googles continued claims of a desperate lack of interested advertisers seem more and more strained as time goes on...