The Company That Ate the Web: Google's Quarter Century Journey from Bridge Builder to Web Destroyer

Jun 15, 2025

In this conversation, Keith Teare, co-founder of TechCrunch, dives into the seismic shifts at Google over its 25-year journey. He explains how AI is disrupting the traditional web model, breaking the 'simple bargain' that once benefited both Google and content creators. Teare also highlights the ramifications of AI-driven search, which bypasses links, fundamentally altering how we access information. He questions if the AI revolution might turn the tables and challenge Google's dominance in the digital landscape.

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INSIGHT

Google: The Web 2.0 Bridge

Google served as the crucial bridge between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, evolving from search engine to monetization platform.
Unlike Yahoo's curated directory, Google automated indexing and monetized exiting traffic rather than retaining it.

INSIGHT

The Breaking Simple Bargain

Google's long-standing 'simple bargain' with websites exchanged indexed content for traffic referrals.
This social contract is breaking as Google's new AI mode delivers answers directly, bypassing sites and their traffic.

INSIGHT

AI Mode Eliminates Web Traffic

Google's AI Mode answers queries from learned data, not indexed sources, eliminating links and traffic to original content.
This challenges media companies' economic models and ends the Web 2.0 era's traffic-driven ecosystem.

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25 years after serving as the bridge between the Web 1.0 and 2.0 revolutions, Google stands at the vortex of another technological revolution. The company's new AI mode threatens to destroy the "simple bargain" that has sustained the web since 2005 — Google’s deal with websites which sent them traffic in exchange for indexing their content. Unlike traditional search results with links, Google’s revolutionary new AI Mode delivers knowledge directly from training data, eliminating the traffic pipeline that media companies depend on. As That Was The Week’s Keith Teare and I discuss, this marks the end of the Web 2.0 era and the beginning of the AI age, fundamentally changing how information flows online. By eating the Web 1.0 internet, Google established itself as the dominant Web 2.0 power. The multi-trillion-dollar question now is whether today’s AI revolution will eat Google.

Five Takeaways

* Google Was the Web 2.0 Bridge - Though its hard to determine if Google was really a Web 1.0 or 2.0 business, the company clearly served as the crucial bridge between these two eras, evolving from a pure search engine to a centralized monetization platform that dominated the web for two decades.

* The "Simple Bargain" is Breaking - Google's 20-year social contract with websites (free content indexing in exchange for traffic referrals) is ending as AI mode delivers answers directly without sending users to source sites.

* AI Mode Eliminates Links - Google's new AI search produces results from training data rather than indexed links, meaning no traffic flows to original content creators—fundamentally breaking the web's economic model.

* Search Quality Declined After 2010 - Google morphed from scientific link-counting to revenue-focused curation as social media grew, with the top third of search results becoming advertising rather than organic results.

* Google Faces a Binary Choice - The company must choose between traditional search mode (with links and traffic) or AI mode (pure knowledge delivery), as trying to mix both models with advertising would damage the AI users’ expectations.

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