Another point is that networking may be more or less important in the success of various business models. Various free site webmasters may feel that they are self-sufficient and do not need to network so much. I rarely took that attitude as a freesite webmaster assuming that one day the contacts I made would be more important than the money I was making and the businesses I was building at the time.
In addition to their normal function on both ends of the traffic assembly line, business contacts are valuable sources of information.
The great thing is that it is still relatively easy to establish a name and reputation for oneself and to schmooze with the biggest of the big. There are very few barriers to meeting the Heads of State in this industry. If you can't figure out how to do that, one can always get a job with ARS, SilverCash, MaxCash, or some other tremendously entrenched company and meet everyone that way.
Lesson learned ala CJ by the way. ;-)
HeadPimp - I've seen a many a person try and convince they were an ass- but volume always convinces some people otherwise.