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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 10 May 2025
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Google is in an interesting predicament. Their ad service brings in so much revenue, but it's based on search sending traffic to places where those ads are consumed.
Boost search through Overviews and you're limiting the effectiveness and reach of your ad service. And to top it off, your search needs content to ingest and remain relevant. But if the ad revenue drops off to websites, they go out of business, so search has less stuff to ingest.
It's like a reverse flywheel, where each part is working to harm the other part. People have been pointing this out for the last couple of years, but Google search just keeps adding more to Overviews and choking off the flow.
And before you say "good, I hate ads," most of the internet today and its services are paid by ad revenue changing hands. That includes ISPs that host the Fediverse, networking and storage gear makers, pretty much everything to do with open source, and so many jobs that exist to keep the whole thing humming so we can enjoy cat memes.
If Google (or someone like Cloudflare) doesn't figure out a way to keep the money flowing, we may be watching a sea shift in how the internet has worked in the last 30 years.
Google and/or Cloudflare seem to be in a Catch-22 if they don't make good decisions.
I think Google can never really hope to disrupt itself. The entire company is oriented towards selling those ads. So any other internal division that tries to eliminate the ads division is going to have a very uphill battle.
IMO the industry is ripening for disruption and someone will come along with a new idea for how to incentivize content generation and it will very likely continue to involve some heavy commercial marketing.
yea they need those ads, youtube ads bring in around 37bn for the platform in ad revenue.