By the time it was shuttered, it had run its course, I agree with that. It was time to go. But it was near-unusable LONG before that, thanks to ppl gaming the shit out of it and ruining the spirit in which it had been founded.
For folks unfamiliar: Project Wonderful was an ad network that wasn't EXCLUSIVELY for webcomics, but heavily used by webcomic artists and other "geek media" type sites. It was grassroots, easy to be a part of, and ran on an auction model.
Let's say I wanted to advertise my comic, Kitty Time.
- I'd go on PW, and search keywords for similar content (cat, kitten, funny, etc).
- I'd find a super-popular comic, pref. with similar themes.
- The banner spot is currently occupied by another comic, tho. Puppy Day.
And it looks like Puppy Day is paying $3.30 a day for that spot.
So... Am I willing to pay more than that, and bump Puppy Day out of that banner spot? Replace their banner with mine?
YES!
So, I bid higher, and tell PW "I'll pay $5 a day!" And maybe I win the spot!
It was a great system. It offered a lot of control, let you establish a budget, and banner hosts could make BANK. $200 a day wasn't unheard of. Everyone was happy.
So, of course, someone had to fuck it all up.
At some point, someone with the cash to dump realized they could just... build a house in the banner spots, and not let anyone else in. Set their bid maximum at something like $1,000 a day, or some other ridiculous amount no one else would pay. That was enough to ruin everything.
So, they would always be advertising their shit for pennies in top spots. If anyone else bid for that spot, the newcomer would ALWAYS be outbid, and the jerk would keep the spot. And if someone tried to outbid an equally ridiculous amount, they couldn't sustain the bid long.
And the banner hosts, they saw their income crash out because of this behavior. So what was the incentive to stay on PW? 8 cents a day? That was worse than Google Ads. At least GA served MULTIPLE banners, instead of just one or two from some rich asshole.
So, as things tend to go, one jerk-off with a bunch of money to burn ruined it for everybody.
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Honestly, in retrospect, it was surreal as fuck. Dude was practically in a trance, saying the same shit over and over. We quit with the nervous ha-ha-yeahs early, and he just kept going.
(Also, I believe that, in your twenties, a lot of people, especially introvert nerdy types who perhaps spent the 2000s thinking "I'm gunna make COMIX on the INNERNET," are still getting a bead on what's socially normal/acceptable.)
An important element to understanding this shit is knowing a lot of newspaper guys, at one point every one who bothered to even have public opinion on the matter, had incredibly bizarre and self-obsessed theories about webcomics. The primary one being we were out to destroy them.
It went something like
-We were all obviously failed newspaper cartoonist aspirants jealous of their platform/wealth/talent/etc.
-Therefore, we devised a plan to put comics online for free, so ppl wouldn't buy papers for them
-OBVIOUSLY the only reason anyone bought newspapers??
- No Patreon.
- No Kickstarter.
- No Webtoons.
- No Gumroad.
- Few, if any, e-z auto-storefronts.
- Also the rest of comics openly hated/mocked you.
Replying to @Iron_Spike
Also, this was the time when people were straight-up "Oh, I don't spend money on the internet, I don't trust it. What if Paypal runs off with my credit card number?"
Yes, really.
The one reliable way to make steady money?
Ads.
YES, REALLY.
Let me introduce you to the concept of the CASCADE.
Early 2000s internet ad revenue was... something else. Five-fig payouts! And the key to min-maxing it was
1) Getting on the best ad networks, and 2) Making sure your ad banner code (hand-coded!) was ALWAYS serving SOMETHING.
Still not sure how much of that game was just vanilla Spanish Catholicism, and how much was original contributions from the devs.
"God is real and he hates you" isn't exactly unexplored territory in video games, but damn if they didn't make it something special.
If you've never played Blasphemous (or watched it be played), there's a mechanic where, just outside boss battles, you meet a young woman who offers to help you fight. If you accept her help, she heals you a little during the fights.