Free Lunch Is Over for the AI That Broke the Web

[jmyrlefuller]

https://gizmodo.com/free-lunch-is-over-for-the-ai-that-broke-the-web-2000623837

by Luc Olinga
July 3, 2025

On July 1, Cloudflare, one of the internet’s core infrastructure companies, declared “Content Independence Day.” In a landmark policy shift, the company announced it will now block AI crawlers from scraping sites hosted on its platform unless those bots pay content creators for the data they consume.

“Cloudflare, along with a majority of the world’s leading publishers and AI companies, is changing the default to block AI crawlers unless they pay creators for their content,” CEO Matthew Prince announced in a blog post. “That content is the fuel that powers AI engines, and so it’s only fair that content creators are compensated directly for it.”

(excerpt)

[Sighlass]

So the rest of the internet gets even more congested when AI is squeezed. I have a music forum that is nearly useless now with all the AI spam bot messages.

[Sighlass]

This move marks the dawn of the pay-to-train era. OpenAI has already signed high-profile licensing deals with publishers like Reddit and the Financial Times.

Search engines already put too much Reddit crap in results.... I guess they really like presenting the liberal point of view of Reddit on top.

[Smokin Joe]

Search engines already put too much Reddit crap in results.... I guess they really like presenting the liberal point of view of Reddit on top.

Search? Meh. Only until they find what *they* want.