How pages like this used to be paid, and how this one is

Last revised 14 September 2026.

The money behind pages in this category changed shape while you were away, and the change explains a good deal about how they read now. So: then, now, and here.

Then: banner advertising, paid by the thousand views

That was the whole model, it paid badly, and it produced pages stuffed with keywords to raise the view count. You can still recognise survivors of that era by the density of repeated phrases in their opening paragraphs.

Now: ranked lists, paid by position

The lucrative model became the comparison table, because a position in it is a product that can be sold and resold. This is where money bends writing hardest in the category, and it is invisible unless you know to look for it.

Here: one link, paid only if a reader later becomes a customer

No table, no ranking, no position for sale. If somebody follows the outbound link and later pays that service, a share reaches me. No fee for coverage, no payment per visit, and no agreement about wording.

What that model does to the text, which is the point of saying it

It pays nothing for a click, so there is nothing to gain by talking you into one. That is why this page can afford to spend a whole section on a difficulty that cannot be solved, and why the section about screenshots is not buried at the bottom.

What has not changed: the hosting bill

Small, paid whether or not anybody clicks, and paid before the arrangement had returned anything. That last part cannot be demonstrated, so weigh it as an assertion beside the checkable ones. Written 14 September 2026.