Google’s Immense Greed Is Destroying the Open Web

Google's AI-powered search features are drastically reducing publisher traffic by surfacing AI summaries instead of directing users to original sources. Major outlets like USA Today, Reuters, and Politico are debating whether to block Google entirely, even as doing so risks further traffic loss. The crisis illustrates how tech platforms can undermine the content ecosystems they depend on.

Teaching:
• Use the parasitic relationship between Google and publishers as a metaphor for how students sometimes treat practice—extracting quick fixes or surface insights without engaging the source material (the full posture, the breath, the method).
• Frame attention as a finite resource: just as publishers lose clicks to AI summaries, students lose depth when they skim YouTube tutorials instead of attending class or doing self-practice.
• Discuss the difference between extraction and relationship: Google extracts content without reciprocity; students who only show up for adjustments or 'the hard poses' extract value without building a sustainable practice.
• Explore the idea of 'enough is enough' in practice—when to stop outsourcing authority to apps, influencers, or quick answers and commit to the direct experience of the method.

Writing seeds:
• Essay: 'The Google Problem in Your Practice'—how treating Ashtanga as a content mine (poses to post, techniques to extract) kills the living relationship with the method.
• Shala Daily post: 'Biting the Hand That Feeds You'—on how skipping foundational work (Surya Namaskara, standing poses) to chase advanced asanas undermines the system that would actually support progress.
• Post for ashtanga.tech: 'Systems Literacy vs. Summary Culture'—why understanding how practice works (breath, bandha, drishti as a system) beats collecting tips and cues from AI or social media.
• Essay: 'Attention Economy, Attention Practice'—comparing the collapse of the open web to the collapse of attention in modern yoga, and what it means to practice in an age of infinite distraction.

Idea map:
• Mirrors MJH's systems literacy frame: Google's AI breaks the feedback loop between publishers and readers, just as shortcuts in practice break the feedback loop between effort and adaptation.
• Connects to embodiment and direct experience: AI summaries are disembodied knowledge; practice is embodied knowledge that can't be outsourced or summarized.
• Relates to his thinking on attention as the core skill: the open web required attention to navigate and synthesize; practice requires attention to breath, alignment, and sensation—both are under siege.
• Echoes his critique of extraction culture in yoga: Google extracts value without reciprocity; students who treat teachers or lineage as content sources do the same.

Source: https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/google-greed-destroying-open-web