I often wonder the same. With current advances in technology both in mass-media and automation, many elements of consumerism beyond basic needs could be made vi

I often wonder the same. With current advances in technology both in mass-media and automation, many elements of consumerism beyond basic needs could be made virtual. With near-full automation, human repetitive labor tends to be value-less; however, human attention becomes a scarce resource, given all the cultural offers competing for them. The most valuable resources would be scarce raw materials and machinery (concentrated in the hands of wealthy owners), top notch creativity (a natural talent, unevenly distributed), and attention from the public (everyone gets the same amount of it; finding ways to attract and concentrate it has proven to be extremely valuable, as Google taught us). I envision that you could create an attention economy from those elements.