Sabre - deja vu all over again

Travel Weekly is reporting that Sabre is offering to pay travel agents for booking A/A. Am I the only one that is reminded of the days when CRS companies were lining up to make fat payments to travel agencies? It didn't make sense way back then and it makes even less sense now. If it was a good business tactic, then Google would pay consumers to enter search requests. The advertisers get the benefit (in this case, the airlines) so they should be paying for the channel.