Here's a listing I made last year about conversion ratios (raws) from 2000 - 2020 (projected) :
Using the data above this one shows how many hits you would have to send assuming all other things are equal to make the same amount as money as you did by sending 1,000 hits in the year 2000.
Using this data the projection is that a newbie will need to send 14 times the hits in 2012 to a sponsor as in the year 2000 to make the same amount of money.
You can't really predict the future and it's all just estimates but as I said in the thread
https://gfy.com/showthread.php?p=18455257 the past data has been pretty accurate in my experiences as an affiliate.
An affiliate must send more traffic in general now to make it. That makes it harder. According to these numbers take whatever you make now and multiply it by 14. That is about what you would make in general in the year 2000 with the same traffic as you have now. So if you make $100,000 a year now you would have made about 1.4 million in the year 2000 with that same traffic. Pretty staggering.
Another interesting figure. Let's pull it out of our asses that Manwin say makes about $100 million a year with their current traffic (totally made up number, I really don't know). That would mean with the same traffic in 2000 as an estimate they would have made about 1.4 BILLION!!!