No matter how tempting an affiliate program sounds,it cannot beat the stability and control that you can get from owing your own products.Businesses online that are build solely on affiliate programs are very risky and unstable.Hence to succeed in making a living online, you got to own some products which are under your control and also allows you to keep 100% of the profits for each sales.Owning your own products doesn't mean that you must create them yourself. There are many netpreneurs who buys quality master resale rights of products and resell them at 100% profits. They even create affiliates program in ClickBank and let other affiliate programs sell for them by giving them a share commission as high as 75%.In the long-run, if the odds are calculated, the real winners are the one's who own the affiliate programs. Most of the internet millionaires who claim to have earned millions on the web are actually affiliate program owners. Yes, you may make some money from joining affiliate programs but overall making a living online purely from affiliate programs is really a tough challenge.

For making a living online, most of the people are doing many things at a time, affiliate program is one of the part of them, not as a whole. I think it is nothing bad if you're selling computer parts and accessories and run affiliate program of dell/apple. Most important point to think how better monetize the site with ton of targeted traffic.