Originally Posted by SomeCreep

The industry is perfectly fine, except for the fact that it takes a lot more of everything to do anything these days. In other words, 8 hours of work accomplishes what 4 hours of work did 5 years ago. 10,000 uniques generates as much revenue as 5000 uniques did 5 years ago and so on.

All things being equal, webmasters can expect to continue seeing their conversions decline further and further as the years progress. If your average conversion ratio right now is 1:1000, it is likely 5 years ago, it was around 1:500 or better. Five years from now, it will likely be 1:5000.

As long as one keeps generating more traffic to compensate for worsening ratios, they'll be fine.