AI agents could kill ads — micropayments need governance

Erik reppel, a coinbase engineer, argued at consensus miami this week that ai agents could disrupt the internet's ad-based business model. the reason: autonomous software ignores online ads entirely. the replacement is micropayments. agents pay per request, per api call, per mcp server query. x402 is the protocol. base is the settlement layer. here's the governance problem: if agents are paying for everything they consume, they need budget controls that can't be bypassed. an agent that ignores ads also ignores rate limits, usage warnings, and cost estimates.