At some point websites will just have to start charging an entry fee just to make it so if you really are yet another bot, at least you are paying for your stay. If you're not rate limiting your websites in 2026 on a per user level, you really need to, and figure out how to do it meaningfully. Raise limits for known human power users, especially if they pay to use your website.
I wonder if the "short-term" "fix" is people will start to migrate off the web and into mobile, though none of this stops agents from using phone emulators, so kind of pointless, but I imagine crawling the web is easier for AI.
I signed up and paid the $5 for the groundbreakers, which was last year and was pre-beta. We had a fair few months with just people who had donated before they launched the beta signups (which if I remember correctly didn't cost anything).
I wonder if the "short-term" "fix" is people will start to migrate off the web and into mobile, though none of this stops agents from using phone emulators, so kind of pointless, but I imagine crawling the web is easier for AI.