Entire internet is basically funded by one thing: tracking real humans to serve them targeted ads.

[Tom D]

We are actively transitioning to an internet where software talks directly to other software, leaving human users as an after thought. The internet isn’t dead, but it has definitely been handed over to the machines, and we are just guests here now.

A new report from Fortune confirms that automated programs officially generate more web traffic than actual people. Infrastructure giant Cloudflare tracked this crossover happening in June, meaning over half of all clicks, views, and form submissions are completely synthetic. We are no longer the main characters of the internet; we are just sharing space with millions of active algorithms.

These aren’t just the dumb spam bots from ten years ago that left broken English comments on YouTube. The new wave consists of AI agents that browse websites, click links, and interact with content exactly like a human user would. This specific type of highly active bot traffic has grown by nearly 8,000 percent in just twelve months.

Developers are already accepting defeat and building the web directly for machines instead of normal human users. Payment processors like Stripe report that 70 percent of their data requests now come directly from automated agents rather than people.

 

[J Grant]

I hope that younger users who now log onto social media cut back their use, as it seems a number already are. How many cat and dog and people purposefully crashing into a wall videos can one watch? And most videos now are repeats of each other or part of the content creators' brand, looking to monetize. There will still be social media use but as it bedfomes more commercialized with evrey time you click a message poppsing up on your phone to sell you something, users might withdraw.

 

[glenn walker]

Not going to happen most older folk's now spend their days and nights on some form of social media, games, watching You Tubers and it's replaced their TV and Radios and our librarys mostly empty with people using their laptops & smart phones. The last few generations grew up using smart toys and have never known a pre interweb society.

The adults use AI to respond to threads posted because they can't be wrong that's what Claude says and the same with students.

Every-one's a expert and old books are being purchased copied and burned or shredded by large AI operations. By 2035 books will be non existant except ones hidden in homes and concrete archives.

Finally the people don't know the New Order is NOT building most data centers for AI but for the fast coming-One World Digital Currency that existing banks and government computers can't handel. By 2030 the massive changes coming will be very schocking to anyone over 60 years old.

 

[Elliott]

Leo Laporte who use to have a national tech radio show use to say, "If you say something on the internet it is the same as being in the public square."

I'm fond of saying, especially after I bought something I wouldn't have thought of buying, "Advertising works." When I started out as a real estate salesman, the company instructor said, "Every thing you buy has a salesman behind it."

 

[Artemis Fowl]

What happened to to good ole' days when it was funded by ****?

 

[Mark K]

..... meaning over half of all clicks, views, and form submissions are completely synthetic.

And since advertisers pay for each click, you have to wonder exactly who is behind it.

Google develops software bots that make bogus 'clicks' so the advertisers on Google pay Google more money? Nah! They wouldn't possibly do that...would they?