I'm just trying to follow the logic here. 'I don't do it and nobody else on here clicks on sponsored links, therfore it does not work for anyone, no matter what your ad says, no matter how cheaply you can run it' EVER?
If that was the case you would not see the same adwords advert month in month out appearing for some companies. I accept however, most people crash and burn and Google makes a lot of money on the turnover of new customers.
A good place to start is to monitor sponsored links of associated businesses and notice which ones keep running. So long as they are not big companies with stupid budgets with stupid people running them, you can be sure it's making money.