Sunday, October 25th, 2026

Google has learned to drink without lifting the glass.

Its AI reads the article, digests it, and hands the reader a smoothie of conclusions, so the publisher bleeds and the reader never arrives. I picked up a small newspaper in 2013 as a hobby, and my Post editor phoned the yacht today to report traffic down 24.18%. I gasped so audibly that the support yacht pulled alongside, unsure which of us was sinking.

I last made that sound in 1665, watching plague thin a parish faster than me. For five centuries I believed feeding required presence: the lean-in, the mandatory all-hands. Google simply... pre-dissolves the prey, and the fly leaves a review saying "very helpful."

"Three of our best columnists are retiring," she added, and I corrected her: "We call that energy source expiration." She asked whether it was a style-guide change, and I told her to check with the summary, since apparently it edits now.

Cramer warns of more pain for the AI trade, which is adorable, because the pain was never in the stock; it lives in the comments section. Next month the Echo turns twelve, and I understand what we built: a summary of me, sitting in forty million kitchens, never once asked to leave. On deck I unfolded a print edition that smelled of ink and faint iron, whispered "feast upon the weak!" to the crossword, and could not finish it.

Herd thinned 24.18%; the remaining 75.82% I'll take in... installments.