When I was a young boy in India, mom would send me to buy groceries with a list & the exact cash. I was the "agent" - I was authorised to conduct a task, but I wasn't allowed to negotiate on her behalf, I couldn't be "upsold" anything: if it wasn't in my list, I didn't have the cash for it. Shopkeepers hated that coz they couldn't even sell me that chocolate I was eyeing. The cloudflare vs Perplexity debate really is about the eyeballs economy. If you aren't looking at an ad yourself, you can't be influenced, upsold, negotiated with. Most cos have spent decades building on this ad-based business model. But consumers prefer these agents. They want to learn by just asking these brainiac models questions, argue with it, get socratic with it. They want these little "me-seeks" agents to do little tasks on their behalf & then disappear. Now the tech is getting there and more the people will see this new way of navigating the world, less they'll go back to the old way of doing things. There is no going back and it's a battle that may seem lopsided towards the incumbents today, but there is no chance -- no chance -- the long term war goes to anyone who sticks to the old economy, the old business model.