Google Has Its Hand Around the Throat of the Independent Media and It’s Squeezing Harder and Harder

Another day, another existential crisis for news media.

The shift to digital platforms has not been kind to the independent media industry, which has had to scramble for a shrinking share of ad revenue and adapt to near-constant changes to Google’s algorithms. Yet as problematic as the move away from print media was, few could have imagined just how grim the media ecosystem would become once generative AI hit the scene.

Traffic to web media sites has nearly hit terminal velocity over the past year, as tech giants like Google funnel users away from traditional web search and into AI products that summarize journalism instead of encouraging users to actually read it. According to data compiled by Axios, the number of visits to the top 100 news sites has plummeted over the past five years, from a peak of over 70 million visitors a month in July of 2024 to just over 47 million in July of 2026.