What's the deal with all those pay as your surf programs?

Well, for those of you who have been living on the planet Zog for the last few years, pay as you surf companies offer you the opportunity to earn money simply for viewing adverts displayed in an 'adbar'. The premise is that these banner ads will captivate your attention to such an extent that you will feel compelled to visit various web sites and buy whatever unmissable offer is available at the time. Nevertheless, it isn't compulsory that you purchase anything at all if you don't want to.

Since many people do visit and spend money at these sites, all sorts of people are willing to pay companies such as Valuepay and Cash Surfers in order to have their adverts displayed. A small chunk of the income generated from affiliated advertisers is shared with the members as a reward for keeping the adbar visible on their desktop.

In addition to being paid for the hours that you surf, you also have the opportunity to refer other people to sign up using your ID reference so that you can earn money while they surf.

...Or at least this is how the pay as you surf system used to work before the bottom fell out of the internet advertising model and the dot com bubble burst. These days you'd be lucky to see a single penny in return for the time you invest in these programs. If you want my advice, give them a wide berth; they're not worth the hassle.