I think one of my 1st was DirtyBird.com -- I think they were paying something like .02 per click back then. Started up a site in June of '97, tinkered with a few smaller PPC programs, and got the site up for like $30/day and thought that was just awesome... an extra $900 a month, I was on top of the world
I was a quick study in the biz, and before you knew it XPics was on the scene paying webmasters ungodly amounts per click, so who couldn't pass that up. Next thing you know, that little $30 a day goes to $200 a day, and the career was born. Thanks to a listing on PersianKitty way back then, and AltaVista traffic... kept me going long enough to bankroll some cash, and get some bigger and better things going -- mainly my own paysite.
Then got involved with Dean from Intergal, and started making some serious money as one of his main affiliates. The whole while still growing my paysite, with my own merchant account at the time -- so fees were minimal.
It was a great run, and got nearly 8yrs out of it.... but just recently closed up shop on the sites. Stricter credit card regs, losing merchant accounts, and losing entire member base on your paysite will do that to you. Plus just burnout in general. Maybe I'll jump into it again someday... but for now I just kind of peek from the sidelines