> Bots and agents are part of the future of the web, and the companies who unleash and profit from them must directly help avoid and repair damage they can do.

Unfortunately, it seems as if these companies - especially Google with the AI overview box - want it to be the other way around, they want to pivot to being the only entities that users interact with as much as possible.

An open web is a direct and massive threat against Big Tech. And that is why Twitter downranks first posts in a thread that contain external links, why Youtube silently removes comments that include links (including to other videos) and why Instagram forces people to do the "link in bio" dance. And the Chinese competitors are just as bad - in fact, their "super app" ecosystems are what Musk wanted Twitter to become with "everything X", before he found out his BS completely wrecked the brand image.