Meta's crawlers now read more of the web than Google's bots do, and no one's negotiating
The AI-bot blocking and licensing fight is aimed at Google, but DataDome data shows Meta's crawlers now drive the majority of AI agent traffic, returning almost nothing in referrals while Google's bots stayed the most-blocked. The author argues publishers are negotiating over a shrinking traffic promise that Meta never made in the first place, leaving a licensing-only outcome as the likely end game.