IDK bittorrent is pretty effective at hosting bytes. I think if something like IPFS takes off in our generation there will be no need for advertising as an excuse for covering hosting costs in the client-server model.

As for funding "content creation" itself, you have patronage.

Well I expect eventually the agent will be able to act on your behalf with your credentials.

And as advertisers get declining human views on their ads, the value of the business model will dwindle until it needs to be replaced by other forms of revenue. Content that can't shift business models and requires revenue to continue will die off.

Edit: Maybe that's fine, maybe that's bad. Maybe new models will emerge and things will reshape. But I'm just supporting the case that AI agents will pressure the current "free" content economy.

the free content economy is bogus, I am part of a growing segment of users that just block ads anyways.

I'm also and I pay for the services that I use to not see ads, but I don't pay for every single one. For example a local classified website is financed by ads, and I don't think anybody will pay for just looking at stuff there. Maybe they can switch to the model where the person puting the thing for sale would pay but hat is something where we are not currently.

If that's the case, then you might as well just list it on eBay and skip the local classifieds/craigslist/facebook/whatever.

Is that a world we actually want?

Which is fine if you’re paying for a subscription. Will probably soon see one subscription rate allowing AI access on your behalf, and a lower rate without that access. Since a human accessing without a bot is likely to see the ads.

What was the web like before wide spread internet ads, auth, and search engines?

Did all those old sites have “business models”? What did the web feel like back then?

(This is rhetorical - I had niche hobby sites back then, in the same way some people put out free zines, and wouldn’t give a damn about today’s AI agents so long as they were respectful.

The web was better back then, and I believe AI slop and agents brings us closer to full circle)

I recall a hotelier who advertised free WiFi at a time when everyone thought that monetizing WiFi was a hot new revenue stream.

"What," he was asked, "is the business model for free WiFi?"

"What," he retorted, "is the business model for free washrooms?"

It was much smaller and people wrote on Usenet to connect with one another, not to shout in the void while corporations hoover all the content.

The web was so much smaller back then. Just imagine I turned the user (not automated in any way) based clicks that can occur from a link like reddit today towards your site then. We called it the slashdot effect way back, but that many clicks might take down the entire ISP.

Many of these sites business model was simply "don't cost too much". The moment the web got big a lot of these sites died. Now add DDOS for fun and profit became a thing, most people moved to huge advertising based providers/hosters (think FB).

Simply put, we're never getting the old web back. Now, we may get something new, but it will be different and still far more commercial.

I agree the early web was better, but it was less, and it has killed off other media, so now it has to be more. I sorely want the decentralized, personal passion web back, and the current small web crowd seems the most anti-AI bot group I hear from.

I also just don't expect "Claude, what is some random Gen Xer's opinion about the early work of Paul Thomas Anderson?" to really be the bulk of how this is used.

X11 pop under ads were a thing around at least 2001

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=88041&page=1

As were punch the monkey and similar banner ads

https://www.computerworld.com/article/1360466/i-refuse-to-pu...

When was the great age of the web that wasn’t inundated with ads and SEO?

It was really easy on old school search engines like Altavista.

You can't expect the benefits of public web without bearing the costs. Just put your stuff under a auth wall (can even be free) and no one will crawl it.