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While agents act on behalf of the user, they won't see nor click any ads; they won't sign-up to any newsletter; they won't buy the website owner a coffee. They

While agents act on behalf of the user, they won't see nor click any ads; they won't sign-up to any newsletter; they won't buy the website owner a coffee. They don't act as humans just because humans triggered them. They simply take what they need and walk away.

Tokumei-no-hito 1y ago
fair point. where's the front page CF callout for google search agent? they wouldn't dare. i don't remember the shaming for ad and newsletter pop up blockers. that being said, agree with you that sites are not being used the way they were intended. i think this is part of the evolution of the web. it all began with no monetization, then swung far too much into it to the point of abuse. and now legitimate content creators are stuck in the middle. what i disagree on is that CF has the right to, again allegedly, shame perplexity on false information. especially when OAI is solving captchas and google is also "misusing" websites. i wish i had an answer to how we can evolve the web sustainably. my main gripe is the shaming and virtue signaling.
- skybrian 1y ago
  As far as I know Google's bot respects robots.txt and doesn't try to evade detection?
  - Tokumei-no-hito 1y ago
    maybe. the allegations against perplexity are being challenged and i haven't seen any research on google agent. CF can demonstrate nonpartisanship, and gain credence for their claims against perplexity, by being transparent about other players in the space. (as an aside, not to shift the goalpost to the elephant in the room, but i didn't see any blog posts on the shameless consumption of every single thing on the internet by OAI, google and anthropic. talk about misuse..)
skybrian 1y ago
Yep, also true of something like curl -s $url | llm --system 'summarize this article'
- vouaobrasil 1y ago
  It's also true that you could dismantle a building with a hammer, which accomplishes the same as dynamite. So why not just sell dynamite at the local hardware store along with hammers?
1gn15 1y ago
Do you have an ad-blocker? If so, should website owners be able to disable your ad-blocker via a setting they send to you? It's their content, after all.
- Rebelgecko 1y ago
  As a frugal person it's frustrating when websites block me for using an ad blocker, but I also don't think publishers should be required to send me data
- beardyw 1y ago
  They may, and do, refuse to send you the page. That is a more realistic parallel. Without advertising the web would be largely unsupportable financially without per site subscriptions.
  - skeledrew 1y ago
    Without advertising, the web would be a far healthier place today, free of click-bait and ad-infested, low effort, low quality content. Bad business models wouldn't've survived the light of day.
skeledrew 1y ago
Funnily enough this would also mean some humans are not human, like me. I exhibit that behavior exactly as well. Maybe I'm an agent acting on behalf of myself, whatever that means.
lofaszvanitt 1y ago
And Cloudflare is the police entity to enforce this, right?

Tokumei-no-hito 1y ago

fair point. where's the front page CF callout for google search agent? they wouldn't dare. i don't remember the shaming for ad and newsletter pop up blockers. that being said, agree with you that sites are not being used the way they were intended. i think this is part of the evolution of the web. it all began with no monetization, then swung far too much into it to the point of abuse. and now legitimate content creators are stuck in the middle. what i disagree on is that CF has the right to, again allegedly, shame perplexity on false information. especially when OAI is solving captchas and google is also "misusing" websites. i wish i had an answer to how we can evolve the web sustainably. my main gripe is the shaming and virtue signaling.

skybrian 1y ago
As far as I know Google's bot respects robots.txt and doesn't try to evade detection?
- Tokumei-no-hito 1y ago
  maybe. the allegations against perplexity are being challenged and i haven't seen any research on google agent. CF can demonstrate nonpartisanship, and gain credence for their claims against perplexity, by being transparent about other players in the space. (as an aside, not to shift the goalpost to the elephant in the room, but i didn't see any blog posts on the shameless consumption of every single thing on the internet by OAI, google and anthropic. talk about misuse..)

skybrian 1y ago

Yep, also true of something like curl -s $url | llm --system 'summarize this article'

vouaobrasil 1y ago
It's also true that you could dismantle a building with a hammer, which accomplishes the same as dynamite. So why not just sell dynamite at the local hardware store along with hammers?

1gn15 1y ago

Do you have an ad-blocker? If so, should website owners be able to disable your ad-blocker via a setting they send to you? It's their content, after all.

Rebelgecko 1y ago
As a frugal person it's frustrating when websites block me for using an ad blocker, but I also don't think publishers should be required to send me data
beardyw 1y ago
They may, and do, refuse to send you the page. That is a more realistic parallel. Without advertising the web would be largely unsupportable financially without per site subscriptions.
- skeledrew 1y ago
  Without advertising, the web would be a far healthier place today, free of click-bait and ad-infested, low effort, low quality content. Bad business models wouldn't've survived the light of day.

skeledrew 1y ago

Funnily enough this would also mean some humans are not human, like me. I exhibit that behavior exactly as well. Maybe I'm an agent acting on behalf of myself, whatever that means.

lofaszvanitt 1y ago

And Cloudflare is the police entity to enforce this, right?