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by tptacek 9 days ago
The business model of the site is apparently private data sales, not ad revenue.
1 comments

Bots don't make purchasing decisions.
Some people are already trying to make that happen, but I'm convinced it'll be a net-negative.
Rephrase: Bots SHOULDNT make purchasing decisions.
Because... ? If I'm operating a site, and I want $X to allow a bot to scrape my site, why shouldn't the bot be allowed to make the purchasing decision to scrape the site? Obviously the bot owner would have their own set of guardrails, but if it allows sites like The numbers to stay up because bots aren't going to look at ads so the old model of displaying ads isn't going to work, I have a hard time seeing that as a bad thing.
I mean it from the consumer perspective.
According to the post inquiries for purchasing the data increased as a result though so they might not make the decision, but they do make the suggestion.