what needs to be cut is NON revenue generating expenses in companies. not the ones that actually drive your business

That's simply un-true. Advertising is a growth strategy, but you can only grow when you're sure you've got all your ducks in order. What often happens during a recession is that the people in charge cut back on growth areas to ensure they are still focused on the right things. If they find that they are not, they persue new directions, if they confirm that they are going in the right directions, they reinvest.

You can rant about it all you want, but that is the reality of the marketplace. Not reacting to reality is not a smart thing to do, and most smart investors would rather keep their cash then give it to a (now riskier) venture.

of course it's a growth strategy. i would never suggest otherwise. but this IS the technology age. and i would even go out on a limb to suggest, if you're not growing and/or innovating, you're dying.

and that's doubly true when financial systems collapse

If you are traveling without focus on your direction, you will eventually fall off a cliff.

People start really worrying about their eventual cliff drops (real or imagined) during a recession. All businesses will need to react to that perception change if they want to survive.

if you've got your "ducks in a row" which i guess is the PC version of "shit together"... then you'll always be prepared for whatever comes. it's when you're not prepared and have these glaring flaws in your organization that everything falls apart when cliffs are spotted :D

it takes a true complete meltdown to kill a business that's "properly" run. we can only dream of that kind of perfection, though. i personally feel that ad-driven businesses are afforded a little extra cushion in bumpy times because their revenue is not directly from the consumers. of course sufficiently mountainous bumps are still felt O_o

thanks for your input

(above is tounge-in-cheek if that wasn't clear)

Fun fact: There are not enough eyeballs in the world to support the CPM goals of the newspaper industry.

Not to go all DHH on you, but you could create content people are willing to pay for.

I'm sure he/she can try, but not sure / could achieve this goal. Out of the thousands of web/online services, I only pay money to 4:

1password, paypal, skype, and itunes.

While in theory one could get at least one dude to pay for a service, I doubt a randomly selected poster on Hacker News can get enough cash this way to buy a taco on a regular basis (i.e. often enough to survive on the calories). At least in the current situation.