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The Economist posted a new article called the Case of Missing Clicks which forecasts that Google may be over the hill and in decline.

In the article, they discuss Google's minimum bids, and how that is affecting the over all volume of advertisers related to any given search term or phrase.

We agree this is likely resulting in fewer clicks as the minimum bid policies have affected many advertisers, ourselves and clients included.

Since Google implemented their minimum bids, we have steadily been decreasing generic terms for many of our campaigns because their minimum bids are often excessive.  Last year at this time we could bid on generic terms that produced significant traffic and subsequent sales.  The cost was fair to good.  Now, some of these terms have a minimum bid that is 10 times higher than last year. What used to cost $.50 now costs $5.00.   Because they were generic terms, and it took a lot of clicks to get a qualified lead, a sale, we simply cannot afford to bid on the terms anymore.  Now, even some of the granular terms have minimum bids, which is causing us to further reduce our spend. Google has also started applying minimum bids to our clients trademark names, which borders on contributory infringement laws related to trademarks. But, that is for the lawyers to decide. 

Either way, if this excessive minimum bid policy continues, we will soon have to stop advertising with Google as will our clients.

So, to the point of the economist article, where have the clicks gone missing? 

In our opinion, they have gone missing because of Google's minimum big policies.