Building a Better Web: One That Works for Creators, Users, and Society

Over the past few decades, we’ve watched the internet reshape how people discover, enjoy, understand, and create information. From search to social to aggregation, each shift brought new benefits, opportunities — and new tradeoffs. But what’s happening now isn’t just another iteration. It’s a structural rewrite.

Users no longer browse. They ask. And AI systems answer — with information that’s often pulled from publishers, researchers, and creators, but with no bylines, no backlinks, and no credit. Discovery is no longer mediated by search or social. It’s happening inside a model. And the implications for creators are massive.

We’re entering the post-URL era. A world where content doesn’t just live on web pages — it lives “in the model.”

If content lives in the model and not on the page we need a new strategy.

From Pageviews to Prompts

This isn’t speculative. Ask an AI about news, science, or finance, and you’ll get a polished response, often shaped by the work of trusted professionals. But the original source is rarely visible. There’s no byline, no backlink, and usually no clear path back to the publisher.

To be clear, AI can be a better UI. For many situations AI connects the dots from many sources and synthesizes a response - resulting in a better experience. And people will naturally migrate to a better experience.

This is becoming the default distribution layer. Not a homepage or a feed, but an interface where a model delivers synthesized responses directly. The interaction begins and ends in the prompt. However, this breaks the link between content creation and audience engagement, making it harder for publishers to see, shape, or benefit from how their work is used.

The Real Risk: Being Erased

Much of the current conversation around AI and content has focused on training data. That matters. But the bigger shift is happening now. AI agents aren’t just trained on publisher content, now they’re delivering answers augmented by publisher content in real-time. Access which bypasses the very infrastructure that sustains those publishers.

The question for publishers is no longer just “Are we being scraped?” It’s “Are we being erased?”

If content isn’t linked, it can’t be monetized. If it isn’t attributed, it can’t be valued. If it isn’t recognized, it can’t be negotiated over. And that breaks the chain of trust and economics that the open web was built on.

So What’s the Move?

If AI is the new front page, publishers can’t just protect pages — they need to define participation. That means:

1. Structure the Content

AI doesn’t read like a person. It parses context, citations, and structured signals. If your content is layout-driven but not machine-readable, it’s easier to ignore — or misattribute.

Structuring content for AI is a strategy, not a technical chore. It’s how you remain part of the system that’s increasingly interpreting and delivering knowledge.

2. Control Access by Intent

Not all bots are the same. Indexers, summarizers, chat agents — they serve different functions and should be treated accordingly. We believe in “declaring, not blocking.” With systems like paywalls.net, publishers can define usage terms based on who’s asking and why.

3. Measure and Monetize

You can’t negotiate what you can’t see. Logging access — who, what, and why — is foundational. It turns anonymous bot traffic into measurable, licensable interactions. It’s the start of real-time, usage-based monetization.

4. Support Open Standards

Proprietary walls won’t scale. The only way to make attribution, licensing, and usage control work across the web is to embrace open protocols. Think OAuth. Think Model Context Protocol. Think shared infrastructure that reflects shared values.

This Isn’t About Going Back. It’s About Getting It Right.

This is where we plant a flag: not in fear of AI, but in service of creators and the culture they shape.

What we’re building at paywalls.net isn’t a wall — it’s a protocol layer. A negotiation layer. A platform for trust. A way for content creators to participate in the AI economy on their terms.

We don’t want a world where the best content is hoarded behind subscriptions or exploited without consent. We want a world where it’s structured, respected, and compensated — whether accessed by a person or a machine.

Imagine a future where the best reporting, insightful science writing, compelling stories, original art, photography, music, and even personal projects and discoveries — all the things people create and share — are accessible through AI systems not because they were scraped, but because they were invited in.

A future where attribution is expected, licensing is seamless, and value flows back to the people who made the work possible.

That future isn’t hypothetical. It’s something we can design — through the products we build, the standards we support, and the choices we make together.

Let’s not just fight for the open web we had. Let’s build the one we need.