Still, one can reasonably expect that the results would be unchanged if you permitted e.g. direct communication with friends through the internet but prohibited informational lookups. That would not entail taking on weirdness, and yet people would still have to be paid a lot for it.

I'd say it would still entail weirdness, unless the exemption is made broad enough to cover anything that would risk weirdness or unemployability -- however then we're back to something resembling the regular internet usage of people who aren't in the habit of wasting time on the web.