What Happens When No One Clicks? AI and the Collapse of the Attention Economy

As The Economist noted last week ("AI is killing the web. Can anything save it"), the rise of large language model (LLM) chatbots is transforming how people find information online, whether they’re looking for the most stylish sneakers or the best treatment for hypertension. But this shift isn’t just a challenge for search engines. It threatens the entire ecosystem of companies that, over the past two decades, have built their business models around internet search, relying on it to attract visitors, sell products, and convert clicks into revenue.

Now when you Google a product or service, or worse, ask ChatGPT, instead of getting a page of links, many of them sponsored, you get a neatly packaged summary, pulled from what the AI “knows” or finds though its own searches in the background. That means fewer clicks, fewer ad impressions, and ultimately less revenue for companies dependent on search-driven discovery. Ad revenues are falling. Click-through purchases, if they haven’t declined already, soon will.

Where does this all lead? One clear implication is that companies which previously advertised on Google—I use Google here as a stand-in for search generally, but with nearly 90% of global search ad revenue, it's effectively the platform—will need to find new ways to reach audiences. Firms that once paid to appear in search results may instead start blocking AI scraping or begin charging them for access. Rather than relying on search-based advertising, they may pivot toward more targeted outreach through social media, and place more content behind paywalls.

This shift also brings back a debate around proprietary information and copyright. AIs like Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT generate responses by aggregating and summarizing content created by others but without compensating the original authors. As more of the web moves behind paywalls or becomes inaccessible to web crawlers, AI “information aggregators” will only be able to draw from what is left in the public domain. The result will be a narrower and potentially distorted AI knowledge base, increasingly shaped by what’s freely available rather than what’s most accurate, insightful, or commercially valuable.

One long-discussed but still unrealized solution would be to embed copyright metadata into online content and implement an automated micropayment system. Under this model, AIs would compensate content creators whenever their work contributes to a response. Though the idea has been discussed for years yet never operationalized, the rise of generative AI may finally create the incentive to bring it to fruition. Perhaps we’ve now reached the tipping point where that vision becomes reality.

Derek Walter Gardiner

Although Derek's life was honored in a service this last January and I posted some thoughts shortly after, I wanted to express some things that my rather clinical posting then didn't.
 
Derek Walter Gardiner - for years "Uncle Derek" (and Aunty Bet) - were my parents' closest friends.  Strangely, I think I have more abiding memories of Derek than I do of my father.  That may be because my father and I were somewhat estranged for the last 15 or so years but nevertheless Derek was a huge influence in my life.  

I took up large and medium format photography (Derek was a photographer). I dabbled in wood carving because of him (and I am blessed to now have one of his carvings). From him I came to enjoy Bartok, Prokoviev and Miles Davis.  

He had a rather mischievous, impish sense of humor.  But he could also be stern and intimidating.  He was a very serious person.  Yes, he could speculate as he did at many new years eve parties with my parents but it was always grounded in deep knowledge of current events and trends. 

I'd often go with them to plays at the Chichester Festival. Usually we'd go to a Chinese restaurant after the play. And because Derek had to go somewhere I used his ticket to see the second half or the Glyndebourne production of the Magic Flute with stage designs by David Hockney.  

I spent a lot of time in the Gardiner household growing up. I would go to tea at least once a week after school. Betty and Derek would be guests of my parents frequently probably once a month or more.  Since Derek worked not far from home, he'd often come home for lunch.  On one occasion I remember very clearly, he came home irritated and exasperated. He'd spent the morning with a "difficult" (one of his favorite descriptions) client who'd been telling him how to do his job.  "I'm a difficult enough person to argue with when I don't know what I'm talking about" I recall him telling Betty. That was so true.  His mental acuity made him a formidable person to take on.    

He and Betty were always there for me after my mother died.  And when my father refused to come to my graduation from INSEAD's PhD program - a spectacularly memorable event in the Salle des Colonnes d'Or in the Château de Fontainebleau, by the way - Betty and Derek made the trip.   

After my mother passed almost thirty five years ago, Betty and I'd talk, often once a week. If Derek answered the phone we exchange a few pleasantries and then he say "I suppose you want to talk to Betty" and pass her the phone.   It wasn't really until Betty died seven years ago that I got to know Derek a little better.  I'd visit him every time I was back in Worthing and we spoke from time to time, perhaps once every couple of months, on the phone. He remained sharp and engaged with the world right to the end. 

He met (and really liked) Pamela when we visited in December of 2023 and had dinner on Worthing Pier. He met Graeme and Mike the year before when we all went to lunch on the sea front.  I saw him last in September of last year when I went back to London from the Imperial College Physics 40th class reunion. It was a very quick visit but I'm so glad I did.  I can still see him in the rear-view mirror of my rental car, standing in front of the small, now unused garage by the steps that led to the garden and then to the house, waving as I drove away.  I know he understood how important he'd been in my life and for that, and for his gift as a role model, I'm forever immensely grateful.         

The truth is irrelevant...

The media is all excited that the MAGA base might break with Trump because suddenly he doesn't want to release the Epstein files. "Nothing to see here" according to AG (and Trump sycophant) Pam Bondi.  "Why would anyone want to know all this sordid stuff anyway" says Trump (despite fuelling the conspiracy by retweeting the daft idea that Hillary Clinton had Elstein murdered while in prison awaiting trial).  

It looks awkward that despite the MAGA base baying for Epstein's "list" to see "who was involved", suddenly Trump wants nothing to do with releasing the DoJ's files. "Aha" cries the press. "It will drive a wedge between Trump and his MAGA faithful".

But here's the thing; well two actually. First, the MAGA base will swallow any bitter pill, so devoted are they to Trump, even to the point of pretending they were never that interested in the Epstein files in the first place. And second, Trump will spin some ridiculous and entirely incredible story that there never was a list and it was all a hoax made up by the left wing media and Democrats working in the "Deep State" to sink his second bid for the White House.  To the MAGA faithful, the truth isn't important. Power and loyalty matter more.