google what you just said and look at the top hit

it's a AI summary

google eats that ad revenue

it eats the whole thing

it blocked your click on the link... it drinks your milkshake

so, yes, there a 100 billion commercially viable product

Google Search has 3 sources of revenue that I am aware of: ad revenue from the search results page, sponsored search results, and AdSense revenue on the websites the user is directed to.

If users just look at the AI overview at the top of the search page, Google is hobbling two sources of revenue (AdSense, sponsored search results), and also disincentivizing people from sharing information on the web that makes their AI overview useful. In the process of all this they are significantly increasing the compute costs for each Google search.

This may be a necessary step to stay competitive with AI startups' search products, but I don't think this is a great selling point for AI commercialization.

And so ends the social contract of the web, the virtuous cycle of search engines sending traffic to smaller sites which collect ad revenue which in turn boosts search engine usage.

To thunderous applause.