They were a $3500 dev-kit to enable some base level of preparation when the costs come down. They were never going to be mainstream.

The core concepts that “they’re stealing from us by linking our content” and “they’re fucking us over by not including our content in their results” are mutually exclusive.

But somehow the same groups are consistently pushing both.

Also:

The firm launched this project after European publishers demanded more information about the traffic brought to their websites by Google search as part of the implementation of the EU Copyright Directive.

It’s none of those.

There is not, and never was, any reasonable belief or expectation that there was any path to resembling an actual currency. The entire market is shitty gambling hoping you’re the one who times their sale correctly.

IDK what you want to call it.

It’s silly to get mad at the kid for selling a shitty meme coin people were willing to pay for when that’s the whole reason they exist.