The bandwidth now is cheap, when I launched Image Socket I was on two dedicated machines at FDC that served closed to a thousand requests per second. The reven

The bandwidth now is cheap, when I launched Image Socket I was on two dedicated machines at FDC that served closed to a thousand requests per second. The revenue on advertisements would be 10x (from what I recall) of what I spend on the hardware. The trick is to approach the problem smartly via bandwidth control techniques (ip rate limiting, proper bandwidth queues via ipfilter, etc) and identify abuse early. In 2014, their margins would be (again my opinion) double of what mine where. Hardware is cheaper, bandwidth is cheaper and you have easier access to really fast and complex caching solutions.