[cobblestone]

This argument is and has always been specious, yet it's always the fallback.

If the income is so low and irrelevant, why are the links there in the first place. Why even put a question mark on it when it's just entirely unnecessary? I fairly prolifically blog, and I haven't put a single affiliate link in a post since it was a novelty in the mid-90s, because to do so takes advantage of readers and undermines credibility.

And to your root claim, I'd say it's absolutely ridiculous. I've come across blogs reviewing and recommending books that they clearly had never read, at most skimming a short ways in. Most technical books are absolutely horrendous (I understand you cite yourself as an author, almost surely motivating your down arrow), so this completely short circuits the equation.

[Encosia]

Because it's not a question mark in the first place for most people. Does it really make you happier if Amazon keeps those pennies instead of me using them to pay Linode? If I point you in the direction of a bad product on Amazon, it's going to be abundantly clear when you see that it has terrible reviews there. That's when it would be valid for you to flip the credibility bozo bit on me, but not simply for using an affiliate link.

I agree that most technical books are pretty bad. That's why I've only made blog posts recommending 2-3 out of the dozens that publishers have sent me to review.

In fact, if you look a few years back on my blog, Intel gave me a nice Ultrabook to review and I ultimately posted saying that I could not recommend it due to the keyboard. If I'll bite the hand that feeds me $1,500 laptops, I'm pretty confident that a few Amazon dollars here and there are not clouding my judgement.

(BTW, I wasn't the one who downvoted you; I couldn't even if I wanted to since your comment is a reply to mine)