I’ve noticed something lately. Not gradually either. It feels like it’s happened in the space of a year or two.
The internet has started putting up gates.
You click a link, you want to read something, and you’re met with a banner. Not the old irritating cookie notice – those were bad enough. This one’s bigger. And it’s not asking whether you accept cookies. It’s asking whether you accept the deal.
Pay up.
Or sit through a wall of adverts stacked like a Jenga tower and agree to a few hundred cookies tracking everything you do.
That’s the choice. Apparently this is how the web gets “better”.
Right.
From Mildly Annoying to Actively Hostile
I was reminded of this earlier when I’d just finished writing about Formula One and the new 2026 era. Curious what the journalists were saying about the proposals, I went to Google – not something I do much these days, I tend to use Perplexity because at least it gets to the point. Four links caught my eye.
Every single one was blocked.
- One wanted a subscription before I could read past the second paragraph.
- Another demanded I disable my ad blocker and accept a pile of tracking cookies.
- Another had the classic “continue reading for £3.99 a month.”
- And the last one gave me the modern internet’s favourite ultimatum – pay, or accept the cookies and the adverts.
I abandoned all four.
Mostly out of annoyance. But also because something about the whole thing just feels off.
Remember When the Web Was Just… Free?
The early web had plenty of rubbish on it – no question. There was always nonsense floating around. But most of it existed because someone had something they wanted to share. An opinion, some knowledge, a guide, a rant.
You wrote it, you published it, people either read it or ignored it. That was the deal.
Now half the internet greets you at the door with a toll booth.
AI Didn’t Start This. But It Made It Worse.
And here’s the bit nobody really wants to say out loud.
AI has made this worse. Not because AI is the villain – it’s a tool. But it’s made it laughably easy to produce content at industrial scale. Entire websites running on autopilot. Articles appearing every ten minutes. Automated images, automated videos, automated summaries of other automated summaries. When the cost of producing content drops to almost nothing, the logic becomes obvious. Publish more, lock more behind paywalls, milk the traffic while you can.
Because the content itself doesn’t matter. Only the clicks do.
The Privacy Lot Got In On It Too
And the cookie consent world has happily come along for the ride. When Content Costs Nothing, Quality Follows
Remember when those banners first appeared and we were told it was all about transparency and user privacy? The same infrastructure – the same consent frameworks and opt-in mechanics – have now been folded neatly into the monetisation machine. Accept the tracking or pay up. Your privacy or your wallet. Pick one.
Meanwhile, the people actually sitting down and writing something are still doing what they’ve always done. Thinking about what they’re saying. Researching things. Spending half an hour to a couple of hours on a single article. Which sounds painfully slow compared to the automated content factories pumping out thousands of posts a day.
But that’s the difference.
One is writing. The other is manufacturing.
Squeezing Harder, Losing Faster
The irony is that it’s backfiring. People hit a paywall and leave. They reject the cookies and close the tab. Or they skip the website entirely and just ask an AI for the answer.
Publishers are squeezing harder than ever at the exact moment readers are learning how to go around them completely.
So What’s Actually Going On With the Web Right Now?
Why are so many websites now asking me to pay or accept cookies?
It comes down to money. Publishers are losing ad revenue and looking for ways to replace it. The pay-or-track model gives them two options: either you hand over cash, or you accept enough tracking cookies that they can sell your data to advertisers. Neither option is great for the reader, but from a publisher’s perspective it keeps the lights on.
Is AI making the paywall problem worse?
Yes, in an indirect way. AI has made it cheap and fast to produce large volumes of content, which means some publishers are churning out articles at scale with little regard for quality. When content costs almost nothing to produce, the incentive is to publish more, lock it behind a paywall, and treat clicks as the only measure of success. The writing suffers. The reader suffers.
Are paywalls always a bad thing?
Not necessarily. Journalism costs money to produce properly, and some outlets use subscription models to fund genuine investigative work. The problem is when low-quality, high-volume content gets the same treatment – a paywall on a regurgitated press release is a different thing entirely from a paywall on a long-form investigation. One feels like a fair trade. The other just feels like a shakedown.
What’s the alternative to paywalled content?
A few options. AI-powered search tools like Perplexity pull from multiple sources and summarise the key information without sending you through a paywall. Independent bloggers and writers who publish openly are still out there. And increasingly, newsletters are filling the gap – direct to your inbox, no banners, no ultimatums. Quality still exists online. It’s just harder to stumble across.
Why are readers just skipping websites entirely now?
Because they’ve been trained to. Hit enough paywalls, accept enough cookie warnings, sit through enough ad stacks, and eventually you stop clicking links altogether. Tools like AI assistants give fast, direct answers without the friction. Publishers are making their own product harder to access at exactly the moment a frictionless alternative has arrived. It’s not a great combination.