Source: Kottke
Prometheus aggregates "gift links"—free articles shared by subscribers of major paywalled publications—into a searchable database. This converts a friction point (paywalled content) into a frictionless workaround that undermines publisher business models. Individual sharing was already happening at scale, but indexing it creates an efficient alternative to paid subscriptions for readers and removes the friction that makes paywalls economically viable. Publishers tolerate gift links as a retention/sharing feature, but a centralized search layer that optimizes for free access directly threatens the conversion funnel they depend on.