{"id":698728,"date":"2025-11-11T21:55:23","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T18:55:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/tim-berners-lee-warns-ai-may-collapse-the-ad-funded-web\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T21:55:23","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T18:55:23","slug":"tim-berners-lee-warns-ai-may-collapse-the-ad-funded-web","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/tim-berners-lee-warns-ai-may-collapse-the-ad-funded-web\/","title":{"rendered":"Tim Berners-Lee warns AI may collapse the ad-funded web"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a33109288f4f\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a33109288f4f\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/tim-berners-lee-warns-ai-may-collapse-the-ad-funded-web\/#Sir_Tim_Berners-Lee_helped_build_the_modern_web_Now_hes_worried_AI_could_help_destroy_its_business_model\" >Sir Tim Berners-Lee helped build the modern web. Now he\u2019s worried AI could help destroy its business model.<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h2 class=\"subhead\" itemprop=\"alternativeHeadline\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Sir_Tim_Berners-Lee_helped_build_the_modern_web_Now_hes_worried_AI_could_help_destroy_its_business_model\"><\/span>Sir Tim Berners-Lee helped build the modern web. Now he\u2019s worried AI could help destroy its business model.<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"bialty-container\">\n<p>Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web, is worried that the ad-supported web will collapse due to AI. In a new interview with Nilay Patel on Decoder, Berners-Lee said:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>\u201cI do worry about the infrastructure of the web when it comes to the stack of all the flow of data, which is produced by people who make their money from advertising. If nobody is actually following through the links, if people are not using search engines, they\u2019re not actually using their websites, then we lose that flow of ad revenue. That whole model crumbles. I do worry about that.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Why we care.<\/strong> There is a split in our industry, where one side thinks \u201cit\u2019s just SEO\u201d and the other sees a near future where visibility in AI platforms has replaced rankings, clicks, and traffic. We know SEO still isn\u2019t dead and people are still using search engines, but the writing is still on the wall (Google execs have said as much in private). Berners-Lee seems to envision the same future, warning that if people stop following links and visiting websites, the entire web model \u201ccrumbles,\u201d leaving AI platforms with value while the ad-supported web and SEO fade.<\/p>\n<p><strong>On monopolies.<\/strong> In the same interview, Berners-Lee said a centralized provider or monopoly isn\u2019t good for the web:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>\u201cWhen you have a market and a network, then you end up with monopolies. That\u2019s the way markets work.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cThere was a time before Google Chrome was totally dominant, when there was a reasonable market for different browsers. Now Chrome is dominant. <\/li>\n<li>\u201cThere was a time before Google Search came along, there were a number of search engines and so on, but now we have basically one search engine. <\/li>\n<li>\u201cWe have basically one <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">social<\/a> network. We have basically one marketplace, which is a real problem for people.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>On the semantic web. <\/strong>Berners-Lee worked on the Semantic Web for decades (a web that machines can read as easily as humans). As for where it\u2019s heading next: data by AI, for AI (and also people, but especially AI):<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>\u201cThe Semantic Web has succeeded to the extent that there\u2019s the linked open data world of public databases of all kinds of things, about proteins, about geography, the OpenStreetMap, and so on. To a certain extent, the Semantic Web has succeeded in two ways: all of that, and because of\u00a0Schema.org.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cSchema.org is this project of Google. If you have a website and you want it to be recognized by the search engine, then you put metadata in Semantic Web data, you put machine-readable data on your website. And then the Google search engine will build a mental model of your band or your music, whatever it is you\u2019re selling.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cIn those ways, with the link to the data group and product database, the Semantic Web has been a success. But then we never built the things that would extract semantic data from non-semantic data. Now AI will do that. <\/li>\n<li>\u201cNow we\u2019ve got another wave of the Semantic Web with AI. You have a possibility where AIs use the Semantic Web to communicate between one and two possibilities and they communicate with each other. There is a web of data that is generated by AIs and used by AIs and used by people, but also mainly used by AIs.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>On blocking AI crawlers.<\/strong> Discussion turned to Cloudflare and their attempt to block crawlers and its pay per crawl initiative. Berners-Lee was asked whether the web\u2019s architecture could be redesigned so websites and database owners could bake a \u201cnot unless you pay me\u201d rule into open standards, forcing AI crawlers and other clients across the ecosystem to honor payment requirements by default. His response:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>\u201cYou could write the protocols. One, in fact, is micropayments. We\u2019ve had micropayments projects in W3C every now and again over the decades. There have been projects at MIT, for example, for micropayments and so on. So, suddenly there\u2019s a \u201cpayment required\u201d error code in HTTP. The idea that people would pay for information on the web; that\u2019s always been there. But of course whether you\u2019re an AI crawler or whether you are an individual person, it\u2019s the way you want to pay for things that\u2019s going to be very different.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><strong>The interview.<\/strong> <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/podcast\/814552\/tim-berners-lee-world-wide-web-ai-future-interview\">Sir Tim Berners-Lee doesn\u2019t think AI will destroy the web<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMN63nwsw68G3Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more like this article, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/technology\/\" target=\"_blank\" >Technology<\/a><\/span> category.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/tim-berners-lee-ai-ad-funded-web-collapse-464522\" target=\"_blank\" >Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sir Tim Berners-Lee helped build the modern web. Now he\u2019s worried AI could help destroy its business model. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web, is worried that the ad-supported web will collapse due to AI. In a new interview with Nilay Patel on Decoder, Berners-Lee said: \u201cI do worry about the infrastructure&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":698729,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2025\/11\/ai-ad-supported-web.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-698728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}