There’s one heck of a donnybrook going on at Mashable, kicked off via Duncan Riley at the Inquistr, involving everyone’s favourite downtime service (Twitter), and John Reese, Internet Marketing schlep / god (depending on where you sit).

Funny thing is that the comments on most of the blogs come overwhelmingly from from the “Internet Marketing is Good” camp, overwhelmingly supporting John Reese.

Now, I’m not going to debate the merits of the actual issue (Twitter’s coming apocalypse now the Internet Marketers have arrived), but what I do want to comment on — as someone who has observed the Internet Marketing industry pretty closely for over 10 years — is how refreshing it is to have some real conversation on the issue.

Because one of the biggest problems with Internet Marketing is that are very few real conversations about it. Most of it are on the forums, but the even there its hard to find a real opinion on things.

(but if you’re looking for a rare post, look over here)

Why is this?

Because of affiliate marketing.

There was a reason why Mark alluded to the industry and affiliate marketing like spyware. Now of course it is nothing (literally) like software replicating itself; but what he was getting at was that because people are compensated / monetized for promoting something, it encourages people to do it — ad naseum.

In fact, this is an entirely rational response, and billions are made in the affiliate industry doing it.

Unfortunately, because the Internet marketing industry lives on promoting itself *TO* itself, you get very few real opinions and conversations on products *IN* the internet marketing industry, because everyone is too busy chasing affiliate checks.

Let’s be honest — it takes a (VERY) strong Internet Marketer (or blogger) to avoid reviewing a product without throwing out their affiliate link; and if they’re going to do it, its going to make it doubly hard to write a real critical review.

If you doubt me, head on to see the over abundance of folks on John Reese’s side and follow their links. To a man (or woman) they’re all promoting — guess what? — products or services related to Internet Marketing (and its a big industry).

There are many things that Internet Marketing does right. An emphasis on actually selling a product, for example, rather than persuing the freemium model endlessley.

But there are a great deal of things that are fundamentally bankrupt that very, VERY few people acknowledge or even talk about.  And I’m not talking about the exceptions, or exceptional individuals, who John Reese may be.

I’m talking about the average.  I’m talking about the rule.  I’m talking about what ordinary folks see when they try and dip their foot in to the water — and to spell it out, yes, its the endless hype, the endless promotion, and the lack of any critical thinking on anyone’s part.

And I think its a very good thing — at the very least — that perhaps the conversation on this topic has begun in earnest.