It comes down to conversion rate, the CPC you earn as an affiliate is roughly the same as you could earn from an ad network (affiliate marketers doing price arbitrage ensures this is the case).
But if you can produce a significantly higher conversion rate by integrating the affiliate links into your core product then it may be able to generate you more income.
You can get the affiliate payment rates fairly easily from someone like Amazon of an affiliate network like CJ so use them to make a spreadsheet and figure out the kind of traffic and conversion rates you'd need to make a viable startup.
But if you can produce a significantly higher conversion rate by integrating the affiliate links into your core product then it may be able to generate you more income.
You can get the affiliate payment rates fairly easily from someone like Amazon of an affiliate network like CJ so use them to make a spreadsheet and figure out the kind of traffic and conversion rates you'd need to make a viable startup.