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by TeMPOraL 11 days ago
> "Agent Readiness" will likely age as well as "Web 4.0 Blockchain Integration" has.

I was going to counter that, but thinking some more, I actually agree, but for slightly different reasons.

> not because agents won't be a relevant thing, (...) but because (...) requiring special allowances from sites undermines the whole point, and such things will only end up used by bad actors to mismatch what agents see to what humans see, and so will be intentionally ignored.

My perspective is that I see web as adversarial, and from my perspective most of the parties operating web sites are themselves bad actors. Mismatching what humans and agents see is something that we'll see intentionally used by websites, same as they do to search engines.

No, I think "Agent Readiness" won't age well because website operators will soon remember that "agents" are just "access automation", i.e. the very thing they're continuously at war against, as this threatens their ability to make money.

2 comments

I think this is the main problem many are overlooking. Much of the fear for website owners that's leading them to block all automated access is simply that their business model relies on humans visiting the site. They're not sitting around wondering how they can make their site more accessible to people and their agents.
> most of the parties operating web sites are themselves bad actors

Wait, what? “Most” by percentage of people who operate at least one website, or by percentage of websites that are “bad”? The latter maaaybe, given auto-generated web spam (“words-with-seven-letters-and-2-ms.html”)?

But to the extent some hotels, airlines, retailers, etc, decide they don’t want my agent and will only sell to me if I personally drive the web browser… sorry, my agent will shop elsewhere.

Economics change, since an agent can comparison shop exhaustively in a way I can’t, but at the end of the day I expect the accountants device that any sale is better than no sale.