Sketching practice: flash photography

Shock! Horror! Dubious conclusion to Jakob Nielsen's post "Horizontal Attention Leans Left"

"Web users spend 69% of their time viewing the left half of the page and 30% viewing the right half.

[ok so far]

A conventional layout is thus more likely to make sites profitable."

[hmmmmm, profitable?!]

Jakob's conclusion could be right, but not based on this argument alone. It's a bit of a wild leap for someone who is usually so black and white about things.

If he had said:

"Web users spend 69% of their time viewing the left half of the page and 30% viewing the right half. A conventional layout is thus more likely to be more efficient/save users time and energy/make life easier/improve user perception and therefore, possibly as a result make the owners a ton...." well maybe.

And there was me relying on Jakob to keep a bit of discipline and order among a world full of snake oil sellers!!! Hey ho.

What do you think?