Anybody who understands the real secrets behind the phenomenal rise of Google advertising program will be in a much better position to benefit and profit from it, whether or not they are current AdSense affiliates.
You can't beat the deal to advertisers where they pay only for actual traffic to their website and more so when they can easily calculate their conversion rate on that traffic and predict their profit margin on the deal. This arrangement cannot be duplicated on TV or in any other offline media with so much precision and accuracy.
It means that any expert in any tiny little niche will find it increasingly easier to make a good regular income from a low traffic targeted site with higher paying, more valuable AdSense keywords.
Content is not king, it's everything. Good writers are already enjoying a huge advantage as Google affiliates. Only well written content will attract quality traffic and only interesting engrossing content will keep that traffic coming back again and again, and thus guarantee enough traffic to keep AdSense affiliate earnings high.