Ironically, this feels exactly like the various "semantic web" initiatives, only this time coming directly from the tech megacorps and not the starry-eyed "free web"/"open data" idealists.

It will hit exactly the same walls too, namely that the technical details are completely irrelevant - if adopting a standard is actually a negative for websites, because it will separate the site from its users, sites will obviously not do it.

You can lead the horse to water but you cannot make it drink, especially if the water is obvious poison.

> if adopting a standard is actually a negative for websites, because it will separate the site from its users, sites will obviously not do it.

Not that I believe this will be how the future turns out, but what if the main users of websites end up being agents? Then adopting the standard ends up being a requirement for survival instead of something negative.

Hopefully and ideally we don't end up there, because then the internet will surely suck for us humans, but I'm not so sure the whole "make platforms/websites open up for the machines" will necessarily fail yet again because of the same issues, can very well be different this time.

Is an agent-ready website so obvious poison? If I'm running a plumber shop in East London, then I'd want agents to know that just as much as I want Google (Search) to know that. The same will be true for most real-world businesses. Only sites that make money by selling their users' data and eyeballs obviously stand to suffer.