Blocking AI bots won’t save media from its original sin
Ben May, managing director of The Code Company, has had a front row seat as publishers used digital platforms for growth, often with generic content. Here, he controversially argues that if an AI bot can destroy your business model, you were already done.
Following the wave of enthusiasm around Cloudflare’s recent “Content Independence Day” last week, complete with tools to block AI bots and promises of a crawl-for-cash future, it’s worth asking what exactly publishers think they’re protecting.
As someone who’s worked with hundreds of digital publishers over the past decade, I’ve had the rare privilege of sitting at the decision-making table more times than I can count. And what’s clear is this: blocking bots won’t save media. Because what’s being “saved” was already broken.
The illusion of the pageview economy
The web economy many relied on was built and optimised for attention, not value. For years, publishers pumped out content designed to game algorithms, chase programmatic revenue, and pad pageview metrics. That model only worked while traffic was cheap and monetisation was outsourced to ad tech platforms.
