"This is the same story as Google AdWords back in the day."
Not really, adwords pretty much worked from day one, bid for placement was inspired by the goto.com paid search engine model which was minting money back in the 00s if I remember correctly.
I don't remember anybody panning it. I'm probably an outlier[1], but do remember a friend of mine going from broke to making a good living off it through affiliate marketing within 3 months.
[1]Early on he quickly became one of Google's biggest customers, even working alone. He was invited to the first Google Zeitgest. These days he spends in the multiple tens of millions per year on Google.
Not really, adwords pretty much worked from day one, bid for placement was inspired by the goto.com paid search engine model which was minting money back in the 00s if I remember correctly.