The Agentic Web and Original Sin

Ben Thompson discusses the concept of advertising as the internet's "original sin," as proposed by Ethan Zuckerman, and Mark Andreessen's regret over the initial lack of native payment systems. Thompson argues that advertising was a necessary and beneficial model for the human web, enabling free access to content and services. He critiques the idea of microtransactions and defends subscriptions as a model that supports content creation. Thompson then pivots to Microsoft's proposals for an Open Agentic Web, highlighting the importance of open protocols like MCP and NLWeb. He emphasizes the need for native digital payments, particularly stablecoins, to support content creation in the age of AI, proposing a marketplace where AI providers pay content sources based on citations, fostering competition and incentivizing high-quality content.