It is worth noting that you can by EntreCard credits on the open market. At $125 for 25000 credits, that would make the ad cost $2500/day. That seems a bit steep.

I think EntreCard has not seriously thought about how to deal with the economy. They do not provide the number of credits in circulation, sort of like the M1 money supply in the U.S. economy. That would be useful information.

Their efforts to cut inflation, by cutting the number of credits produced when a card is dropped doesn’t really address the problem. I end up receiving three or four hundred less credits a day, and so I spend three or four hundred credits a day on advertising. The net effect to the credit supply is flat. The only result is less ads. That may drive down advertising costs, at least where I’m not buying ads. However, you would think that they would want to encourage people to advertise, not discourage it.

Looking at the statistics, you’re right, the high end sites have not come down in price. Right now, an ad on my site costs 1500 credits, or about $9 if you buy those credits. It has remained pretty constant. The advertisers that are getting hurt are the low to middle priced advertisers. I like to look at the ratio of popularity to price to gauge relative value of an add. Prior to the change, the popularity to price ratio had been averaging between 4 and 5 for sites costing under 128 credits. It has now climbed to 8 to 10. So, the changes have hurt prices, but on the low end and not the upper end.

Enough thoughts for now.