tech
Axios House: As click behavior rapidly switches, open internet pays the price
For the first time, bots outnumber people on the internet — and in five years, they could exceed humans by 1,000 to 1
TL;DR
- Bots now outnumber humans on the internet, with projections suggesting a 1,000:1 ratio in five years.
- AI's consumption of internet content without payment is financially harming content providers.
- AI's ability to compare products without brand loyalty makes it hard for smaller companies to compete, potentially destroying small businesses.
- Publishers are being cut out of information discovery as users increasingly rely on AI.
- Spotify's model, which gives users control over AI recommendations and pays creators, is presented as a potential solution.
- Google's use of a single crawler for AI and search creates a dilemma for publishers wanting to block AI training.
- A UK ruling allows publishers to opt out of AI training while remaining in search, a model Cloudflare aims to apply globally.
- The ad industry needs to address the decline of the open internet, with significant value needing to be redirected from large platforms.