I would imagine that online 'get rich quick schemes' have an even higher rate of failure than most startups. Perhaps 99.99% versus 90-95%?
However, I do agree I would have better spent those years thinking about how I could solve people's problems instead preying on their insecurities.
I think what people here are saying is that given the obvious level of effort you (I assume you're the author) put into this, you could have put serious dents in a few patio11/rob walling style saas or other small product businesses. I understand there's money to be made chasing various arbitrages in online advertising, but those get plugged over time. Plus a product business would make me feel better about what I spend all day doing.
I've also read about people making serious money from advertising; it seems like the time investment to understand all that stuff is big enough that it could help you understand a small business instead.
Here's some stats (top-level, very approximate) from my own experience:
* Number of campaigns created & stage 1 testing: 500+ * % to stage 2: ~25% * % from stage 1 to 2: 20% * % from stage 2 to "success": ~50%
In the end, I'd say that roughly 5% of my affiliate campaigns were successful. Success is defined as eventually returning the test budget * 4.
The key was that if I got a campaign to stage 2 I had a very high likelihood of profit. Literally 50% of the stage 2 campaigns became successes (most stage 2's broke even close to it).
Of those successful campaigns, only 10% of them generated 90% of my profits on average. The end result is that ~1% of all the campaigns I made made 90% of the profits, which is quite accurate.
Over the span of 7 years of being a full-time affiliate (excluding the part-time years) 12 campaigns were the main money drivers.