[eadmund]

> Like 'hey cool if I use this tool to interact with your site for this and that reason?'

They do ask: they make an HTTP request. How the server responds to that request is up to the owner. As in the article, the owner can decide to respond to that request however he likes.

I think that a big part of the issue is that software is not well-written. If you think about it, even the bots constantly requesting tarballs for git commits doesn’t have to destroy the experience of using the system for logged-in users. One can easily imagine software which prioritises handling requests for authorised users ahead of those for anonymous ones. One can easily image software which rejects incoming anonymous requests when it is saturated. But that’s hard to write, and our current networks, operating systems, languages and frameworks make that more difficult than it has to be.

[const_cast]

Kind of, but they lie in the HTTP request - their user agent isn't true, they don't disclose they're a bot, they try to replicate other traffic as a disguise, they use many different IPs so they can't easily be blocked, etc.

It's kind of like me asking to borrow your car to go to work and then I take your car and ship it overseas.