AI Startups Are Getting an Inch and Taking a Mile

The author recounts how 2009-era startups and Facebook's external Like button sought audience data in exchange for promised benefits, and argues similar dynamics are now emerging with AI companies. He describes Listaify, a service that scraped his posting habits and pitches startups on paying hundreds or thousands of dollars a year to place links on blogs, and an adtech operator who collected his past sponsor data and offered it back to him. He says such practices exploit founders and creators and push people toward gatekeeping, and that he has forbidden the service on his site.