This would indeed be an economic revolution. Movie review sites would earn more than the movies they cover. It would be more lucrative to run a fan site about a television star or basketball player than to be an actor or an athlete. The number of viewers who click on banners has declined rapidly as well. When the Web grows rapidly, click-through rates naturally decline because readers have so many new choices.
Portals dominate Web advertising today because their sales costs are low.
Large sites with large inventories of ads to sell can support sales departments. Small sites can sell fewer banner slots and must spend less on sales. In time, as global Web traffic grows, an increasing number of topical sites will be able to employ sales staffs. Sites too small to support even one salesperson will band together through agents, networks and alliances. Portals will remain both important and highly visible, but their advantage will diminish as smaller sites become more efficient.