That changes today, July 1, what we’re calling Content Independence Day. Cloudflare, along with a majority of the world’s leading publishers and AI companies, is changing the default to block AI crawlers unless they pay creators for their content. That content is the fuel that powers AI engines, and so it’s only fair that content creators are compensated directly for it.

This is interesting, because roughly one fifth of all internet traffic runs through Cloudflare. If it works, other providers will likely follow. For hosting providers this could be a real advantage. Their servers would be under less load and perhaps the whole thing could even be cross-subsidized, provided rights holders go along. It’s possible this will turn into a cat‑and‑mouse game. Either way, it remains interesting.

The text was automatically translated from German into English. The German quotations were also translated in sense.