If that's true, why bother blocking the tools? Either they are useful in saving money (and more important, hassle), or they're not. If they're not useful, the problem simply won't materialize.

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johneth 36 minutes ago | parent [-]

Because not blocking these tools causes additional operational costs.

For example, higher return rate for online shopping (because the tools didn't buy the correct thing, or maybe they bought something that they shouldn't have).

Or, the tool ignores the adverts on an ad-supported website, intended for humans, basically just adding costs for no benefit to the site.

Or, the tool wastes customer services' time on something that ultimately the agent's operator didn't even want in the first place.

They're just off the top of my head.

	▲	CamperBob2 30 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It's a mistake to think the sites have a choice. I'm hardly going to trust an AI agent to shop on my behalf if it isn't smart enough to operate the browser on my behalf in a way that's indistinguishable from a human. They're almost good enough to do that now; it won't be long. So the end result will be that the sites spend money on bandwidth to shove ads and dark patterns at me, which I will never, ever see. You'd think they'd understand who's going to end up with the power to say "No" here, but apparently not.