There's always an intermediate step between advertising and making money off the consumer interest it generates. The Internet hasn't changed that.
Google targets people who are searching for a keyword. In some cases, these may be people who are looking to buy a product. However, people looking to hire (say) expert C++ programmers can do better than advertising against a keyword, because searching for that term implies nothing about skill or experience. In this particular case, something like LinkedIn would be a much more valuable advertising resource, because it has much more relevant information about the audience.
Google has an extremely clever advertising model. In many cases it is much more efficient and effective than traditional print and television advertisements. But it's still advertising.
It's not the internet that changes that. It's Google specifically. IE, they are not following an advertising model in the sense that magazines or radio shows are.
They are certainly monetising, but I think it is a mistake toi think of it in those terms. Google is more similar to classifieds, service directories or even ebay then it is to the traditional advertising model.
Google targets people who are searching for a keyword. In some cases, these may be people who are looking to buy a product. However, people looking to hire (say) expert C++ programmers can do better than advertising against a keyword, because searching for that term implies nothing about skill or experience. In this particular case, something like LinkedIn would be a much more valuable advertising resource, because it has much more relevant information about the audience.
Google has an extremely clever advertising model. In many cases it is much more efficient and effective than traditional print and television advertisements. But it's still advertising.