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Cloudflare CEO warns AI and zero-click internet are killing the web's business model
(www.techspot.com)
this post was submitted on 13 May 2025
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Yeah I think we're going to be grappling with this issue for at least the next decade. The traditional web model falls apart under AI
To be fair, the traditional web models were falling apart prior to AI as well. We’ve gone so far past “ad driven” that Everything has to be full of ads and clickbait to drive revenue just to run the infrastructure, let alone pay for the pages creation and upkeep. Journalists and developers, services and goods are all using adword soup to try to get anything close to a useful revenue stream and it’ll just keep getting worse until we figure out a better business model. We’re going to increasingly see paywalls to try to make up for that, but a large part of people on the internet won’t want to spend money on quality sources when they use to be able to get it for free. It’s been a race to the bottom for a while and it’s at a point that isn’t sustainable long term. AI just accelerates that to the next level.
What's challenging about paywalls and not wanting to spend money is not necessarily not wanting to spend, but convenience and cost. If it costs me 10 cents for each blog or tutorial or github page I look at while working on a project, or 1 cent for every funny video, that adds up. And do I have to put my credit card in for every site? Hope that every site has good enough security to prevent payment information leaks?
And I don't think anyone is interested in a Netflix-style internet that fractures into 6 different subscriptions to get every site you need on the web.
Some sort of universal microtransaction layer is the dream. I believe there's also a proposed web standard for it.
Scroll was also making it work before they got bought by Twitter
That’s exactly Elon Musk’s goal with making Twitter a payment platform.
Scroll was just for reading websites though. Musk seems to want We chat style super app
Hah. No. That goes all the way back to the 90ies. Tim Berners-Lee proposed that standard.
Did I say Elon came up with the idea? I said that’s his goal.
Also not saying it like it’s a good thing, just stating a fact.
The traditional web was long gone anyways. There are like a dozent sites you find for any Google query. It's so hard to find small hidden treasure on the internet.