🧱The internet is building walls everywhere...

📰 Top of Feed: This Week’s Focus

💸 Google's Solution to AI Killing Publishers: Paywalls, Rebranded

The Story: Google's AI search is decimating publisher traffic, so they're rolling out "Offerwall" - a tool that lets sites monetize visitors through micropayments, surveys, and watching ads. After testing with 1,000 publishers, they're claiming it boosts revenue by 9-20%. The catch? It's basically a fancy paywall dressed up in Silicon Valley speak.

Key Takeaways:

• Publishers can now charge for content via micropayments, surveys, or forced ad viewing

• Google uses AI to decide when to show the Offerwall

• Early results: 9% average revenue boost, with one publisher claiming 20%

• Partnering with Supertab for micropayments - eg., pay $0.50 for 24 hours of access to a specific article

  • Historically, this payment system has not seen scale

• Only revenue share is on the ad-watching option (classic Google)

The Real Talk: Launching “Offerwall” is essentially Google admitting they broke the internet's established business model by offering publishers a band-aid for a severed limb. "Sorry we sent all your traffic to AI summaries, here's a tool to squeeze pennies from the visitors we still send you." When you extrapolate this out even more, the irony is apparent: Google’s platform changes (to leverage AI) creates the problem, and then Google creates the “solution” (using AI to decides when and how to issue the wall). Google is striving to cement its place as the arbiter of the internet. If the future of journalism and independent publications is making readers watch ads, take surveys, or make micropayments to access articles or websites, I fear we'll be faced with a much less dynamic and accessible web experience in the decades to come. Google helped cause the problem. Now it’s selling the fix. Introducing: gatekeeping everywhere.

🔐 Your Driver's License to Browse: SCOTUS is Changing the Internet

The Story: The Supreme Court just upheld (6-3) a Texas law requiring ID-based age verification for accessing adult content, or websites with "sexual material harmful to minors". That means uploading your driver’s license (or letting a third party verify it) for access to legal content online. Eighteen states already have similar laws, with six more pending. This isn't about clicking "I'm 18" anymore… it's about uploading your actual ID to browse.

The Details:

• Websites must verify ages through government IDs or third-party verification services

• Applies to sites with 33%+ content deemed "harmful to minors"

• Free speech supporters fear the “slippery slope” implementing these restrictions could cause, including divergent interpretations of what sort of content could be classified as “harmful to minors”

• Privacy advocates also warn of digital security risks that rise from ID databases

The Real Talk: While there is a tangential culture war angle that worries some, my focus in covering this story is the massive shift in how the internet works. We're moving from an anonymous web to one where you need to show ID at the door. Today it's adult sites, tomorrow it could be social media (for "child safety"), gaming platforms, or anywhere else politicians decide needs "protection." A new technical precedent is being established, normalizing real-ID verification online. Beyond hacking potential, surveillance potential, and a newly introduced quagmire of compliance across variant state laws internet companies will need to abide by, this ruling introduces an interesting shift in the structure of the internet. While the US is certainly no pioneer in applying age safety measures to the web (for example, the Australian government ruled in 2024 to ban under-16s from social media platforms), we’re typically protective of personal liberties. With this move, not only is this a backtrack from that vein of American pride in freedom, SCOTUS takes it even a step further than Australia by allowing the requirement of government-issued ID documents (for reference, the Aussies are exploring less intrusive verification methods). All-in-all, without personally passing judgement on the underlying theme of the dangers of online pornography, the open web just got a lot less open.

🍎 Apple's AI Panic: Time to Open That $130 Billion Wallet

The Story: Apple’s notoriously cautious approach to acquisitions may finally be its Achilles’ heel. As rivals race ahead in the AI arms race, Apple has been left in the dust, tinkering with modest in-house models and softly launching “Apple Intelligence”… more of a branding move more than a consequential tech leap. At the same time, they are sitting on $130 billion cash hoard that could be deployed in moments just like this one. The question is, are they open to shifting their strategy from their standard play (acquiring small, talented teams to absorb into their own internal projects or initiatives) to take bolder action and purchase more established, consumer-ready companies to catch up to their more AI savvy competitors? Reports indicate they're eyeing Perplexity AI (valued at $14B) as a potential target, which would be their biggest purchase ever.

The Dilemma:

• With its massive $130B cash reserve, Apple may need to get comfortable making uncomfortable moves… or risk being left behind

• To date, Apple’s largest acquisition ever has been Beats, at $3B. They are traditionally much more timid in the M&A department that other large tech firms (compared to Microsoft’s $69B deal for Activision or Google’s $12.5B Motorola purchase, for example)

• The company is now eyeing Perplexity AI, a nimble, consumer-ready startup valued around $14B that could plug Apple's AI search gap

  • This is an important deal to watch, as however this story progresses will be indicative of Apple’s agility in the fast-changing landscape

  • Apple is reportedly also in talks with Mistral and Mira Murati’s (former OpenAI CTO) new startup

The Real Talk: This is what desperation looks like in Cupertino. Apple's entire M&A philosophy (small teams, focused tech, no culture clashes) is about to face a reckoning and overdue upgrade because Siri is still asking if you meant to set a timer when you asked about the meaning of life. In this moment of AI competition, Apple can't afford to keep playing it safe. Will the company that pridefully builds everything in-house finally come to terms that they may need to buy their way out of irrelevance? While planned obsolescence may be a solid strategy to maintain hardware revenue, I doubt they want to see the entire firm replaced in a tech hierarchy reshuffling.

🔍 The Decoder Lens: Pressures Mount and Models Change

If there’s one thread weaving through all three stories this week, it’s this: the internet is getting smaller, more gated, and infinitely more complicated.

Google’s Offerwall is a glossy rebrand of the paywall, created to patch the gaping wound Google itself inflicted on publishers via AI search. SCOTUS just gave a green light to state-sanctioned ID checkpoints for adult content, deciding anonymity online is a bug, not a feature. And Apple, once the gold standard of fortress-like brand control, is now eyeing acquisition sprees to stay afloat in the AI race, forgoing its pride to strive for AI dominance and potentially letting outside tech into its walled garden for the first time in a decade.

It all signals a turning tide. We're watching the open web transform into a series of toll booths. Not just for money (though Offerwall certainly wants that) but for identity, for access, for the right to exist in digital spaces. Walls are going up through monetization, regulation, and consolidation.

The paradox: As AI makes content seemingly infinite and “free”, humans are building walls to try to make it scarce and monetize-able again.

But here's what's actually happening beneath the surface: The internet isn't dying - it's molting. 

We've found ourselves in that messy in-between, where the old skin doesn't fit but the new one hasn't formed. We know what we had isn't working anymore, but can't yet see what emerges next. The uncertainty is daunting and the friction uncomfortable.

Every previous tech revolution looked like chaos before it looked like progress. When social media emerged, we mourned the death of blogs. When mobile took over, we worried desktops were done. Each time, what felt like loss was actually transformation.

Yes, the idealistic "digital commons" is fracturing. But pressure creates innovation. The paywalls, ID checks, and AI arms races aren't just symptoms of decline… they're forcing functions for what comes next.

The recognition that the internet is changing gives us power. It reminds us that the web isn't a fixed entity but something we actively shape through our choices, our tools, and our resistance to systems that don't serve us.

Apple's desperation proves even the tech giants must adapt. Google's Offerwall shows old business models breaking down. Age verification reveals the tension between safety and freedom. These aren't endpoints - they're inflection points.

The open web is under pressure. But pressure is also what creates diamonds. 💎

Let's stay curious. Let's build better.

What walls are you seeing go up? What are you building instead? Hit reply - i’d love to hear from you!

-Feed Decoder

P.S. At least reading this newsletter required zero ID verification, micropayments, and AI search engines. The old internet isn't totally dead yet! Let’s bring back the simple email inbox newsletter again 😎