No clicks, no content: The unsustainable future of AI search

The previous model isn’t sustainable either. It leads to enshittification.

Content can’t be free if you want it to be of any quality.

I disagree, lots of volunteers have provided tons of high quality information since the inception of the web. Wikipedia is written entirely by people that didn't get any compensation for it. People answer questions on forums for free.

Likewise, a lot of content produced with commercial interest in mind is total garbage (this is e.g. where the term "click-bait" originates from).

There's always quality stuff and crap, no matter whether it's been produced for free or not.

Wikipedia continued existence is not dependent on ads or clicks.

You just made me imagine if Wikipedia had titles like "Is the Heliocentric model wrong?" or "The third planet of the Solar System has a generic name! Learn everything about it", and half of it behind a paywall.

Or worse, if its content were distributed in short videos: "What to know what's that giant fire ball on the sky? Watch until the end!", with a like-and-subscribe animation covering the bottom 20% of the video every 5 seconds.