Reddit commenters debate whether blocking is a moat or a mistake
3 Nov 1 11:49 AM · 12d ago · 8 comments · 1 source · development 3 of 4
Commenters discuss whether JPMorgan and Amazon's restrictions protect a legitimate security interest or are defensive moves to preserve information asymmetry and the customer relationship, with comparisons to AWS commoditization, PSD2 bank-API regulation, and a defunct price-comparison browser plugin.
“Imagine if you could actually have an ai agent shop around for you and access all your finances acting in your own best interest. This is nothing but a ploy to keep you in the ecosystem”
DesmodromicAlpha, Reddit commenter · reddit ↗JPMorgan Bank restricting AI agent accessAmazon Retailer blocking AI shopping agentsMeta Maker of the Muse AI agent
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What people said 8 voices · verbatim
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Europe is a useful test case for the security argument: under PSD2 banks had to give licensed third parties account access through APIs with customer consent, so the safeguards can be built, but it took regulation to force banks to open up. Without a rule like that, I'd expect agent access to end up negotiated and paid for rather than offered…
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I see the same issues on Amazon's more lucrative business - AWS. You used to need a lot of technical competence to set up web infrastructure. So instead of hiring experts, you paid AWS to handle a lot of it and could use smaller IT teams to maintain it. Now all you really need is space in a server rack. AWS/Google Cloud/Azure will become more…
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That is the key investment question: is this a defensive moat, or a future revenue line? My guess is the durable value shifts from owning the screen to operating the trusted rails — identity, permissions, payments, fulfillment and liability. Those are the parts an agent still needs a platform for.
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Imagine if you could actually have an ai agent shop around for you and access all your finances acting in your own best interest. This is nothing but a ploy to keep you in the ecosystem, as well as hold their cards with the information asymmetry they have been able to hoard after all these years
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Fair point, Google is probably the more direct hit since the whole model is selling attention at the moment of intent. If the agent never looks at ads, that moment basically disappears. Search would have to charge for being the best source the bot trusts, which is a very different business.
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A decade ago I used a Firefox browser plugin called "Invisible Hand." It could search for the best price of any product you had on your screen. It saved me lots of money. Then one day it was just gone. It would benefit the consumer, but it definitely wouldn't help the seller much.
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Could there be a next step then where it would be Machine to Machine ? People’s agents talking to several Companies’s agents to reach the best deal (customer’s need, quality, delivery, price etc.) (not only price)…? For recurring groceries or one time buy.
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Google too. If my bot does the shopping, how much value does search provide to advertisers?
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