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.
It wasn’t sustainable, and most people in the industry knew it.
Now that AI is giving users answers without sending clicks, the alarm bells are ringing. But in many cases, the only thing being “stolen” is undifferentiated, forgettable content that was never built to serve a real audience need.
If ChatGPT can replace your archive, that’s not AI’s fault. It’s yours.
Blocking bots won’t bring the money back
That doesn’t mean resistance is useless. There’s a fair argument for protecting IP and pushing for better commercial terms. But even if Cloudflare, TollBit or others succeed in creating a marketplace where AI companies pay to crawl, that revenue will never come close to what the pageview economy once delivered.
It might soften the blow. It won’t replace the model.
Too many of the strategies floating around now look like that old South Park meme:
Blocking AI might feel good, but it doesn’t address the real issue: is your content actually worth protecting?
The shift: from volume to value—and a viable business
The hard truth is that many publishers built their product for platforms, not for people. And now they’re left scrambling.
A better approach starts with shifting from volume to value. Not every article needs to rank in search or rack up a million views. But it should be distinct, useful and hard to replicate. The content that holds up over time (the stuff readers return to, share or subscribe for) doesn’t just fill a space. It solves a problem.
But value alone isn’t enough. You need to know your niche. Know your audience. And most importantly, know how you’ll monetise them.
If advertising is the play, you’d better have the first-party data to back it up. I’ve been banging on about that for half a decade now.
Mumbrella Publish 2019
If it’s events, follow the playbook many have already proven out: tight community, clear purpose and real utility.
There’s still leverage, but you have to use it
Whether you’re a niche B2C publisher, a newsroom or a brand, the same principle applies. Content must deliver tangible value. Not visibility. Not vanity metrics.
The good news? Many publishers still have leverage. Trust. Distribution. Deep knowledge. But that only matters if you use it to build something better.
AI didn’t break publishing. It exposed the consequences of chasing attention over utility.
This isn’t to underplay the effort involved. This is hard work. The last 20 years of the web are being upended, and it’s changing faster than most can keep up with.
But the reality remains: if you build something good, people will pay for it. Now’s the time to do the work. Not to build walls around weak content, but to make your product so valuable that people want to pay for it. And maybe even AI companies too.
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