agents are just llm humans on computers. they curl apis, puppeteer browsers, ssh around. when they need to pay for something they use stripe or build their own fix in minutes. they don't need x402 or any bespoke agent payment rail. x402 and every agent payment protocol is rent seeking middleware. and rent seeking doesn't survive Moloch. google, aws, stripe are burning billions subsidizing the exact same pipes as loss leaders to win adjacent wars. you cannot toll a road when trillion dollar companies are paving free highways right next to it. this chart is just the timeline of people figuring that out. volumes crashed because the only real volume was people farming the narrative itself.