Is this the end of licensing deals? Sam Altman told Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson that having AI agents paying micropayments per article crawled is his preferred model for compensating publishers. (Andre Deck, Nieman Lab)
- Sam Altman told Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson that AI agents paying micropayments per article crawled is his preferred model for compensating publishers, replacing subscription revenue.
- Thompson pointed out the obvious problem: pennies per crawl don't add up to $80 annual subscriptions, and Altman's response was essentially a shrug dressed as solidarity.
- The model isn't hypothetical. Tollbit, Prorata.ai, and Cloudflare already offer pay-per-crawl infrastructure, and Altman's comments suggest OpenAI may be moving away from lump-sum licensing deals.
