A few weeks ago I wrote this post about how Google, once a foundation of the open web, had shifted decisively against it by transforming search into the front end of a chatbot. Now the Times has a piece that examines the same issue. This is usually presented as a extinction event or at least a catastrophe for publishers. (It’s not for us because we were never very reliant on search.) But as I noted in that June post, there’s much more here than an issue for publishers.