Prince argues that the traditional give-and-take between content creators and search engines has broken down, putting the entire business model of the internet at risk. Traffic and monetization for publishers are collapsing, and Prince blames Google, AI models, and what he calls naive licensing agreements.
Ten years ago, Cloudflare data showed that for every two pages Google crawled, it sent one visitor back to the original site. According to Prince, that ratio has dropped sharply over the past decade: first to 6:1, and now to 18:1.
Google increasingly answers questions directly on its own platform, keeping users from clicking through to external sites. Prince says that six months ago, Cloudflare observed that 75 percent of Google searches ended without a single click to another website. With the introduction of Google's "AI Overview" feature, he estimates that number could now be as high as 90 percent.
AI-based search accelerates the decline
For AI companies, the numbers are even more lopsided. Six months ago, OpenAI crawled 250 pages for every visitor it sent to a source. Now the ratio is 1,500:1. Anthropic's ratio is even more extreme at 60,000:1.
Users trust AI-generated summaries and rarely check the original sources - a trend backed up by early research. For content creators, this means a steep drop in both reach and revenue.
The classic motivations for publishing online are evaporating, threatening not just individual business models but the foundation of the free internet itself. "I don't know if you can't sell subscriptions and you can't sell ads and you don't get an ego hit from knowing that people are consuming your stuff why anyone's going to create content," Prince says.
Short-sighted licensing deals
Prince argues the problem is made worse by what he calls "naive" licensing deals between publishers and AI companies like OpenAI. Some publishers have sold access to their content without putting up technical barriers to stop other AI crawlers from scraping the same material for free. "You can't have a market if you don't have scarcity," Prince warns.
If one AI company pays while others get free access, the market becomes structurally unbalanced.These deals might deliver quick cash, but over time they undermine the value of content. Each contract renewal, Prince says, will come with even worse terms: "The renewal of the deal that you signed today will be worse tomorrow, I guarantee that."
Journalism professor Jeff Jarvis has called these licensing payments "pure lobbying." These payments might be even worse for putting the entire industry in a bind and steering everyone toward a classic big tech prisoner's dilemma.
Cloudflare proposes a collective block
Prince says publishers need to stop AI crawlers if they want to create real scarcity. Cloudflare plans to offer a free protection system that blocks websites from being scraped by AI models.
A symbolic launch is set for the end of June in New York. There, publishers will come together to press a "red button" and activate the block. Prince says all the major media companies are on board, and even some AI providers have shown interest.
Looking ahead, Prince sees a new business model where content is valued for its contribution to human knowledge, not just page views. Large language models could license specific content to fill their own knowledge gaps. For example, information relevant to a medical AI model would be worth more than cultural content aimed at teenagers.
"Imagine that in the future instead of being compensated by how many page views you drove if you could instead be compensated by how much the information that you create advances human knowledge," Prince says. "If we don't fix this, the internet will die."
Cloudflare's own business is tied to the fate of the open web. The company runs a global network for hosting, optimizing, and securing websites and online services - all of which depend on a thriving ecosystem of publishers and businesses willing to offer their content and services online.
