Sam Ragsdale, co-founder of Merit Systems, suggests in an a16z Crypto blog post that the traditional internet advertising model, based on "attention fragmentation," may become obsolete due to the rise of autonomous AI agents. These agents, powered by large language models, are not influenced by advertising, challenging the current $291 billion online advertising market dominated by Google. Ragsdale highlights that AI platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini offer "instant checkout" features, but remain closed ecosystems. He advocates for AI agents with open protocols, such as Coinbase's x402 and the Machine Payment Protocol by Tempo and Stripe, to enable autonomous merchant access and redefine online commerce.