Decoder with Nilay Patel · Saturday, September 26, 2026
Matthew Prince suggests that the traditional advertising-based business model of the internet is becoming unsustainable due to the rise of AI traffic. He proposes a shift towards a model where content creators could charge bots for access, potentially reviving the concept of micropayments.
“And so what we're seeing is actually going back to some of the original protocols of the internet. The 403 protocol, which was written in, you know, the very first versions of Netscape, uh, was actually payment required.”
“And, and that's something, again, we're working with other leading companies like, uh, Coinbase and Stripe in order to say, how do we make sure that we can allow people who are creating content, people who are doing things online, anyone who's putting a website up, to say that in exchange for that, thousands and thousands of times more traffic that's going to come to you, you're not going to maybe get the advertising revenue that comes from it, but maybe you can get a fraction of a penny every time somebody actually accesses that information.”
“Really similar to how like a Spotify or an Apple music works today.”