The Arstechnica article in the OP is about 2 months newer than Cloudflare’s tool

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/ai-haters-build-tarpits-to-trap-and-trick-ai-scrapers-that-ignore-robots-txt/

Big problem with HEIC is it requires H265 licensing because it’s effectively a single frame of video. This is why Windows won’t open HEIC by default is Microsoft didn’t want to pay for the licensing

I’m glad to find other people with similar experiences to mine trying out short form video. I tried TikTok a few years ago when I realized how big it was and that I was missing out on entire cultural touchstones but I just couldn’t. Too much music I don’t like, too much randomly clicking and hoping I like a video, too much visual and audible noise.

Seriously why can’t I just see the title and uploader of a video before I click? What if I don’t want to watch this person or this particular video? Why do I have to decide while watching the video instead of relaxing with a bit of silence between videos?

Honestly the whole UI was just mentally and visually exhausting. I think I made it about 20 minutes of trying to get into TikTok before I finally just said “not for me” and gave up entirely