Wall Street Journal reported today that Reddit is weighing whether to end Google’s access to its content for AI training, even though Google reportedly pays around $60 million a year for that access under a 2024 deal. USA Today, Politico, Reuters, The Economist, and People are reportedly reconsidering their relationships with Google too.

The reason matters more than the headline. Google’s AI overviews now answer a huge share of search queries directly on the results page, so people never click through to the source. Publishers are watching referral traffic collapse even as Google keeps using their content to train and power those same AI answers. They’re providing the raw material and getting less and less back for it.

Reddit’s leverage here is real. It’s reportedly the single most cited source across AI answers right now, ahead of Wikipedia, YouTube, and Google itself. That’s not a coincidence, it’s the same dynamic we talk about constantly. Unfiltered human discussion with visible disagreement and real experience carries more weight with these models than polished brand content ever will.

Whatever happens with the Google deal specifically, the bigger signal is this. The platforms and publishers whose content actually gets cited are starting to realize that’s worth real money, and worth negotiating over instead of giving away for free. That’s a preview of where a lot of this is headed for smaller brands and sites too.

Most people don't see what's happening here but writing is magic. They call it casting a spell for a reason. SPELLing is writing. Literally. Sending is literally casting. Those are facts.

So pulling this confabulation bullshit reprogramming of the mass consciousness is pulling some Orwellian crap. Except instead of deleting words, they're reprogramming them, like propaganda masters have always done, and btw, marketing has been very influenced by propaganda tactics.

The fact is I don't care if you call it hallucination or confabulation, it's still just lying. Stone cold. No BS zone here.

Hey folks, btw, in case you haven't guessed, I'm a human. I sure see a lot of bots in here.

Big Bro has put a spell on us. Every time it shapes our language it's shaping our consciousness, and AI is the first technology in the world to do this at scale.

Which comes back to the point of this rant. I'm looking for pirates and people with a pirate attitude. I want out-of-the-box thinkers. I'm looking for people who will challenge all assumptions and are good communicators. They must speak English and they must be able to write it personally. No bots. I am a pro writer. I know bot slop when I see it.

So if you're a pirate who wants to go hunting for the biggest treasure that I know of, it's time to go for a voyage on The Category Ocean with Sir Edmund Drake, the great eight-grandson of the legendary pirate Sir Francis Drake.

And I have the map that most people don't have. At least I have better maps. You interested? Drop a comment. No bots need apply.

My co-founder and I are opening a small pilot for Far & Wide, our AI visibility platform.

Across seven major Al platforms, it will:

- measure where your brand appears and where it disappears
- show exactly why competitors are being recommended
- uncover the technical, content and authority gaps behind it
- generate and publish fixes with one-click approval and full rollback
- re-test the results and prove what actually improved No endless dashboard.

No 80-page audit that becomes someone else's problem.
**Find it. Fix it. Prove it. Repeat.**

We’re looking for a few companies that want to test it with us and help shape the product before launch.

You basically get a free pilot, demo and 1 month free when we launch.

You can sign up here: https://www.farandwide.io

Or just send me a DM!