Earning by blogging?

I have recently run across so many blogs that seem entirely to focus on just building links and growing traffic lines inwards. And the content seems to be so thin that it hasn't bothered anybody's sense of imagination or creativeness.

Is the only idea behind such blogs to earn money by blogging? Will they get a lot of google adsense hits? Lots of traffic by just writing about something? Lots of money for minimal work? Is there a free lunch?

There are so many e-articles on the web that want the reader in the end to purchase an ebook or a downloadable document that reveals "The secret for making money by doing nothing - just update a page every now and then an you can go an a cruise to the Caribbean...". All of these ebooks sell for less than 10 dollars. And if there are enough of web users who want to pay that 10 dollars, that really is earning money for nothing.

But, have you ever read an article on a respectable magazine, such as the Newsweek or the Time magazine telling that somebody earned a huge fortune by doing nothing? I don't recall, either.

If you have means for this, please let me know. I really would like to earn money with less work :-) (I am one of those few...LOL).