[shanecleveland]

Perfectly said. Your readers do not have to use your website, they choose to. And they can choose to leave your website, and they can choose not to click on your affiliate links.

When and ad comes on the radio, I can change the station. When an add comes on the TV, I can change the channel. I cannot force either one to not broadcast the ad to me and go back to normal programming.

[nicbou]

That is fair. However my readers (and I) choose to keep using websites and getting things from creators, but strip them of their income. We expect everything to be free, but the quality content to keep coming. Oh and now it has to feed AI too.

In that sense they're not leaving. They're consuming my work and occasionally even creating more work, and not giving anything in return.

This is something I'm okay with. In my case it works that way by design. My website is meant to be a free resource. However in the absence of paying users, we're stuck with commercial patrons. Mine have no leverage, but that's very unusual.