This is a question I have wrestled with for my entire career in internet marketing. Can you ethically make money online by talking about making money online? It sounds circular, and the criticism is not entirely unfounded. But after more than a decade of thinking about this, I believe the answer is clearly yes, with some important caveats.
The Core Tension
Here is the uncomfortable reality. The internet is full of people who make money by selling the dream of making money. Some of them are genuinely helpful educators. Others are predators who exploit people's financial desperation. The existence of the predators makes it harder for the legitimate educators to operate without feeling a nagging sense of guilt.
When I recorded this episode in 2012, I had just defended Pat Flynn in his blog comments against someone who accused him of profiting from false hope. That experience forced me to articulate exactly where I stand on the ethics of earning income from internet marketing education.
My Position: Value Exchange Is Not Exploitation
Every transaction in the economy is a value exchange. You pay your electrician because they provide a service you need. You pay your doctor because they have knowledge that keeps you healthy. If an internet marketing educator provides genuine knowledge that helps people build real businesses, that is a legitimate value exchange. The fact that the subject matter is “making money” does not change the fundamental ethics.
The problems arise when the value is fake. When someone charges thousands of dollars for a course full of recycled platitudes. When income claims are fabricated or wildly exaggerated. When the only real “system” being sold is the system of selling systems. Those are ethical violations, and they deserve every bit of criticism they receive.
The Transparency Test
Here is the standard I apply to myself and recommend to anyone building an online business around education.
- Do you disclose your affiliate relationships? Every single one, prominently and clearly.
- Do you only recommend products you actually use? If you have not personally used it, do not promote it.
- Do you set realistic expectations? Building an online business is hard work that takes time. Say that clearly and often.
- Do you share failures alongside successes? Cherry-picking wins while hiding losses is a form of dishonesty.
- Would you give this same advice to a close friend? If not, do not give it to your audience.
If you can answer yes to all of these, you are operating with integrity. Make your money without apology.
Affiliate Marketing Fundamentals
In this episode I also introduced a recurring segment on affiliate marketing fundamentals that would span the next several months of the podcast. The core framework is still solid in 2026.
Affiliate marketing is the practice of matching buyers with products. You create content around a topic, attract an audience who cares about that topic, and recommend products that serve their needs. When they buy through your unique link, you earn a commission. The five pillars are niche selection, website creation, product selection, traffic generation, and email list building.
What has changed is the sophistication required. In 2012, you could rank a thin review site with some basic SEO. In 2026, Google demands genuinely helpful content backed by real experience. The bar is higher, but the reward for clearing it is also greater because so many low-effort competitors have been filtered out.
What Has Changed Since 2012
The conversation around ethics in online marketing has matured considerably. The FTC has issued clearer guidelines on disclosure. Social media platforms have built-in tools for marking sponsored content. Audiences have become more skeptical and better at identifying hype. All of these changes favor honest operators and punish the hype merchants.
The bottom line remains the same. Create genuine value. Be transparent about how you make money. Set realistic expectations. And stop apologizing for earning income from work that helps people.
Listen and Subscribe
Listen to Late Night Internet Marketing on Apple Podcasts or subscribe at latenightim.com/internet-marketing-podcast/.
Mark — Great, great topic! I’m really conflicted about Pat Flynn. He seems like an outstanding guy with great intentions, and nobody that is interested in becoming an entrepreneur should ever give a criticize anyone for making a buck. That said, I wish he’d leave his Smart Passive Income earnings out of his monthly report. They are massive. They completely eclipse his other sites… the kind of sites he’s coaching us to build. I don’t know why it bothers me, and it shouldn’t, but it does. He made 25-g’s just from BlueHost alone. Here’s the point: I’m not interested in what you made off me, I’m interested in what you made from visitors on your sites that are unrelated to making money online. I think to really prove that his techniques work, we should see decent income from websites that are unknown to us. I stress “unknown” to us. I was excited about the niche site duel up until they revealed the names of their sites. I’d love to have 20,000 people hit my brand new site out of curiosity. Maybe I’m wrong about this, but doesn’t that give you a little Google goose? And once you’re in the top two, the income will surely flow in rather quickly from people actually looking for that topic. That’s where Mark Mason stands away from the pack. I rarely feel like you’re trying to sell me a dream. I feel like you’re coaching me to the gate, but I don’t feel like you’re convincing me it’s going to be a cake walk if I do “a” “b” and “c”. Sorry to make this so long, but you hit a hot button. By the way, I’m reading The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, as well, so I had to smile when you were talking about it — and I totally agree; there are good lessons, but it’s a little strange at times, too. -Dave
Mark — Great, great topic! I’m really conflicted about Pat Flynn. He seems like an outstanding guy with great intentions, and nobody that is interested in becoming an entrepreneur should ever criticize anyone for making a buck. That said, I wish he’d leave his Smart Passive Income earnings out of his monthly report. They are massive. They completely eclipse his other sites… the kind of sites he’s coaching us to build. I don’t know why it bothers me, and it shouldn’t, but it does. He made 25-g’s just from BlueHost alone. Here’s the point: I’m not interested in what you made off me, I’m interested in what you made from visitors on your sites that are unrelated to making money online.I think to really prove that his techniques work, we should see decent income from websites that are unknown to us. I stress “unknown” to us. I was excited about the niche site duel up until they revealed the names of their sites. I’d love to have 20,000 people hit my brand new site out of curiosity. Maybe I’m wrong about this, but doesn’t that give you a little Google goose? And once you’re in the top two, the income will surely flow in rather quickly from people actually looking for that topic.That’s where Mark Mason stands away from the pack. I rarely feel like you’re trying to sell me a dream. I feel like you’re coaching me to the gate, but I don’t feel like you’re convincing me it’s going to be a cake walk if I do “a” “b” and “c”.Sorry to make this so long, but you hit a hot button.By the way, I’m reading The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, as well, so I had to smile when you were talking about it — and I totally agree; there are good lessons, but it’s a little strange at times, too.-Dave
DaveInRaleigh @DaveInRaleigh Hey Dave — thanks for the honest comments about Pat.I can confirm without reservation that Pat is indeed an “outstanding guy with great intentions.” I know him fairly well in an online sort of way, and I have spent several hours 1:1 with him face to face.So, that’s all good.Your point that could make his income report better by clearly splitting the SPI income from the other stuff is very interesting. I will mention it to Pat.As for deleting it all together — i don’t agree with that. Pat is trying to be completely transparent by disclosing all of his income. I really believe that is his primary motive. If he did not disclose it, people would definitely criticize him for “hiding” his main income question his intentions. Just my opinion (obviously).You raise another good point that disclosing URLs can have some impact on rankings initially. It would be great if Pat (or I) could build something from scratch in secret and disclose the results. I don’t remember when Pat revealed his URL and I have no way to know the impact….but I do see your point here.Thanks again for your feedback (and the kind words). I will be addressing this further in Episode 034 of the podcast. Stay tuned.Best regards,Mark
I am really glad you addressed the topic of making money online by talking about making money online. I am fairly new to podcasting (downloaded the apple podcast app when it came out a few months ago). I mainly got it to listen to BBC news, stuff you should know, etc.
At one point, I stumbled accross internet business mastery. I have always been interested in making money online, but was never sure if it was for real of just a gimmick. I felt like IBM was legitimate, but I noticed that they seem to make their money online by telling people how to make money online. I continued to listen to them and expand out to other podcasts. On one of the IBM podcasts, they were interviewing Pat Flynn. After listening, I listened to a few of his podcasts, along with a few others in internet marketing.
One thing that kept striking me was it seemed like everyone making money on the internet was making money by telling/selling someone else on making money online. Was it just a never ending circle of people selling you something? Started to feel like a huge ponzi scheme in a way. I have nothing against Pat Flynn, and I applaud the fact that he earned over $50k in a month. I consider that pace of earnings to be someone who is or will be rich. But to look at his last earnings report, $38k comes from telling others how to make money online, $4k from iphone apps, $6k from a client and $5.8k from what I (personal opinion only) consider to be internet business. $5.8k a month is great, but thats making a living, not getting rich. Again, I don’t fault Pat for his earnings/methods, etc. and some may argue that iphone apps and client payments are internet earnings. I personally feel that iphone apps are more of a software development business and client payments are for being a consultant. But to get to an actual point with this paragraph, what i am getting at is Pat gives hope to all who want to try internet business, but it still reinforces in the back of my mind that the way to make money online is to sell people on making money online.
I have continued to research different ways to make money online and realized that this was not the case, but it is very easy for someone new to internet marketing to get this feeling and get turned off pretty quickly. It is while doing this research that I put your website in my rss reader and stumbled upon this particular blog post. The fact that you were willing to address this subject has won you a loyal listener. I have listened to this podcast and your first two. I should be caught up in a couple of weeks.
I have taken the plunge and purchase the new microsite program that IBM just put out. Will I make money with it? Who knows. Will I learn how to do keyword research, set up a blog, write articles, outsource articles, build backlinks, setup google adsense, setup some affiliate links (this part is inspiration from you, not the class) and maybe create a few good info products to sell myself (this part is from my mind), I think so. And most importantly of all, it stops complacency and gets me started. The one thing I have no doubt about is that if I am willing to put in the time, effort and some money, I will eventually make an online business of my own.
Sorry to rant on your blog, I don’t have a lot of people around me that are into this stuff.
Thanks and I look forward to more great info from your podcast/blog.