"Local news publishers, [VP Platforms at The Boston Globe] Karolian told Engadget, almost entirely depend on selling ads and subscriptions to readers who visit their websites to survive. “When tech platforms come along and disintermediate that experience without any regard for the impact it could have, it is deeply disappointing.”"

There's an interesting point that Josh Miller makes here about how the way the web gets monetized needs to change. Sure, but that's a lot like the people who say that open source funding will be solved by universal basic income: perhaps, at some future date, but that doesn't solve the immediate problem.

Do browser vendors have a responsibility to be good stewards for publishers? I don't know about that in itself. I'm okay with them freely innovating - but they also need to respect the rights of the content they're innovating with.

Micropayments emphatically don't work, but I do wonder if there's a way forward here (alongside other ways) where AI summarizers pay for access to the articles they're consuming as references, or otherwise participate in their business models somehow. #AI

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