What do you think about the traffic quality provided by the traffic exchanges?

The EFFECTIVENESS of TE traffic is likely low.

People using them are focused on the 15-second clock & generating credits, so may not even look at any of the offerings before them.

Who has time to surf to make credits which are use for promote is ok.
I use some TE occasionally and I had results.
Are many TE that does not function as they promise, so most be chosen that TE that give the best results.

I think that TEs ( and safelists for that matter ) are good for building your list, by offering free stuff like ebooks or reports, then you have to accept that many people on your list will be freebie seekers, it's up to you to make them buyers, but don't send promotion of stuff in all your follow up emails, else you will lose many subscribers

Mircea, what you talk about are safelists, not Traffic Exchanges, TEs are places where we surf splash pages, there are some that offer both things though

As mentioned above...
Traffic is not the issue.
The goal is have interested people visit your blog/website and convert.
The real secret is placing your information in front of the right people.
I have abated my TE activity the past year or so and focused on Social Media...
Getting more QUALITY Traffic and more Conversions

TE can be used to increase focused traffic to a website ... you still have the Sites-rotators, Banners and Text Ads which basically do that. You also can take advantage of the credit mailer of the system and promote your sites.
Building credit by opening the TE mail you receive is the way to go in mailing out your TE messages.
About making money > it is quite difficult but not impossible. Get the best TEs and have a concise working plan. You'll see results - don't think necessary money.

@Stanislav > just to make it clear: 100,000 hits to $5 CPM = $500 (and not $5 !) ;-)

It depends what you promote. Conversions with TE's for promoting any business will not work. However, I have got downlines for promoting TE business only.

@Stanislav > and what if you had those 100 000 hits to a page monetized eg. $5 CPM ? Wouldn't it be a nice pocket money from fun for kids? LOL

Depends mostly on what you're advertising and who's your targeted clients are. But as Christian says, you must join a lot of TE's and surf regularly all...and this can be huge time consuming activity......

You can get some results with TEs, but you must be aware to surf a lot. Using just one traffic exchange and surfing only 100 sites will not work. Like Ross wrote it cost much time. There are other mistakes people do when using TEs, but this was not the question here. :)

TE are a waste of time you never get results with them unless you know what ones to use and are directly targeted at that type of business. Most TS now a days are full of the same business and too little results. Speaking with people and making groups has far better results.

I think TEs are great in general, but the results much depend on what, how, where, when and why we promote since not all the programs are equal.