Click my articles, I will click on yours

Today on myLot, I was reading a discussion where the poster was asking for people to form a partnership with him on one of the writing sites (one where you get paid by the page view).

His idea (or was it a she---I couldn't tell from the avatar or the user name---doesn't matter) was that if you become his friend on the site, and click on all of his articles, then he will click on all of yours. "That way both of our earnings could go up!"

Hmmm...I am a happy little cynic: if you click on his articles, how do you know that they are going to return the favor? Furthermore, isn't this a violation of most of the user agreements that the writing sites use?

And here is the real tragedy for you. If you actually want to make more money, you are actually better off writing more articles and advertising them rather than doing a scheme like this.

Don't believe me: try such a scheme with a willing writing friend and track the amount of clicks you do, the amount of time that you waste, and how little the two of you earn. Then get back to the typewriter (my age is showing) and continue writing. Forget such schemes; they do not work.