Why the AI revolution needs tollbooths.

A five alarm fire is sweeping through digital publishing. Search engine referral traffic is imploding. That referral traffic has been a backbone of the internet economy for a generation.

Yes, we love AI chat bots because they just give us the answer without forcing us to wade through ten blue search links. But getting our information that way is also blowing up the digital publishing industry.

The solution? Tollbit thinks it’s online tollbooths. And it has 2000 publications as customers who think so too.

This could become a big party fast. I’m told Cloudflare, the internet security and content delivery giant, will announce plans for its own tollbooth July 1.

Internet plumbing stories are often boring. This one - the latest from CrazyStupidTech - is not.