4 ms·

The dichotomy between attention and money (in this context) is forced and not necessarily true. While it is true that attention is valuable, it is valuable prim

by neosat 4y ago

The dichotomy between attention and money (in this context) is forced and not necessarily true. While it is true that attention is valuable, it is valuable primarily because there is an expectation that it can be monetized (either now or in the future). There can be some other minor use cases for attention being valuable for its own sake but those are a minority. The primary goal is to leverage attention (eyeballs) for some kind of advertising. Attention , when it is hard to monetize it, is less valuable (again in the majority case). A case in point would be messaging apps such as Snapchat or WhatsApp compared to something like Pinterest or FB newsfeed. Attention in one of those systems is more economically valuable than others. It's true that WhatsApp was valued high because of usage/attention despite having no monetization but that was more of a strategic play to thwart competitive threat as well as the belief that they could monetize it in the future (as evident in the current direction that the messaging apps are going in)

metacritic12 4y ago
But attention has been much more monetizable than thought in the 1990s. Nearly all forms of attention find some way of getting monetized, and this near-fungibility is surprising. Otherwise, it's tautologically true that "the currency of the new economy is X, to the extent X can be monetized" for all values of X.
- neosat 4y ago
  You're not wrong. But that's not how the headline pitches the article. It specifically says 'the currency of the new economy won't be money'; hence my comment.
  - metacritic12 4y ago
    Hmm your right that the headline says that. But I think to read the article generously, "money" means explicit money, like pay per read, or microtransactions, or pay per app. To that extent, it is surprising how few explicit payments I make per week on the Internet (Amazon, Instacart, Uber?) yet hundreds of companies get cents of my attention (Google, Facebook, TikTok, the tons of content marketing companies Google sends traffic to, etc).
- cptnapalm 4y ago
  Perhaps the dotcom crash altered some opinions with respect to the need to monetize?
nicbou 4y ago
There is the assumption that it can be monetised, but at some point it feels like wishful thinking: get billions of users then figure out a path to monetisation. In reality, the right path is to establish a strong monopoly and enforce a toll road on everyone. Everyone buys through Amazon, but only sponsored listings sell. Everyone buys in-app, and there's a 30% cut for the app store. Everyone dates on Tinder, but only boosted profiles get dates. You get the idea.
- Swenrekcah 4y ago
  Also if you’ve got enough attention then forget about direct monetisation and go straight for political power.
  - fallingknife 4y ago
    Unfortunately, I think this is the future. We already had one reality TV star president. We have a TV "doctor," and a football player running for senate this year. I wouldn't be at all surprised if a lot of social media influencers end up in office. This is, of course, if the internet platforms remain relatively open. The other scenario (and I think more likely) is that the internet media platforms will use the political power that their gatekeeper status confers on them to promote their own narrow interests. They will form their own content arms which will be algorithmically favored, and cut the old legacy media gatekeepers out entirely. Pick your poison.
    - merely-unlikely 4y ago
      > Unfortunately, I think this is the future. Not just the future, more like the status quo. There is a centuries long history of business tycoons buying media outlets for their own purposes. Social media platforms and influencers are just a new flavor.
      - Swenrekcah 4y ago
        To some extent but the unprecedented reach and real time factor of social media, along with the precise targeting and personal data archives from Stasi’s wet dreams makes this really a new era rather than simply more of the same, in my opinion.
nonameiguess 4y ago
It's not always about being monetized. Politicians command attention in order to win votes, and as most people running for office were already rich and are doing it more for ego than to get even richer, I don't believe money is often the motivation. Sports teams seem like another possible counterexample, where being in a larger market with a more prestigious history and larger fanbase can attract better players in free agency, which may lead to more money, but may not, and I again don't believe many of the owners, who were already rich well before they ever bought a team, are necessarily in it to get even richer. They just really like winning and also have enormous egos. Some celebrities will command attention even to the point of losing money. Witness what Kanye is doing right now, though you can argue in his case and probably others what we're seeing is mental illness, but pathological motivations still count as motivations. You might say these are a minority of cases compared to businesses trying to command eyeballs so they can sell you stuff, but I'm really not sure that proportionality stays the same when you take the entire human experience into account. My keenest memories of people trying to command lots of attention are from primary school, and kids weren't interested in being class clown or the most popular because they expected to be able to sell you anything. Popularity was its own reward. Commanding attention is plenty intoxicating all on its own.
slim 4y ago
it is valuable primarily because there is an expectation that it can be monetized your argument is circular. you are defining the value of attention in terms of money, then you dismiss defining it as a currency because (my interpretation) it is an asset or a good. it's like saying that the value of an apple lies in it's monetisation, if nobody buys it it means it has no value attention has value because it's a resource. there's only number-of-people-on-earth quantity of attention at each moment to extract. if you don't extract it it's gone. you also need to compete for it because there's not enough for everybody. the good news is attention is probably the less discriminating resource on earth. every human has exactly the same amount of it* *caveat : the fact you have an equal amount of attention does not imply you can manage it optimally.
- extantproject 4y ago
  > every human has exactly the same amount of it Any evidence of this? https://archive.ph/RkwhK https://archive.ph/RkwhK
hinkley 4y ago
And you're making the mistake of equating money and power. Power gets you money, but money doesn't necessarily get you power. It can take generations for New Money to be treated as a peer in some very important circles. For all the titanically, record-setting dumb stuff Trump has said, he was right about one thing. Filing for bankruptcy (three times?) didn't make him poor. He just needed to collect more favors denominated in cash than he gave out in order to get back on his feet. Influence is not taxed, and for all the noise we make about taxing the rich fairly, that will only slow them down a little. There is an exchange rate between attention and influence. Yes those systems are fueled by money, but in the same way a heat pump is fueled by electricity - highly leveraged.

by neosat 4y ago

metacritic12 4y ago

But attention has been much more monetizable than thought in the 1990s. Nearly all forms of attention find some way of getting monetized, and this near-fungibility is surprising. Otherwise, it's tautologically true that "the currency of the new economy is X, to the extent X can be monetized" for all values of X.

neosat 4y ago
You're not wrong. But that's not how the headline pitches the article. It specifically says 'the currency of the new economy won't be money'; hence my comment.
- metacritic12 4y ago
  Hmm your right that the headline says that. But I think to read the article generously, "money" means explicit money, like pay per read, or microtransactions, or pay per app. To that extent, it is surprising how few explicit payments I make per week on the Internet (Amazon, Instacart, Uber?) yet hundreds of companies get cents of my attention (Google, Facebook, TikTok, the tons of content marketing companies Google sends traffic to, etc).
cptnapalm 4y ago
Perhaps the dotcom crash altered some opinions with respect to the need to monetize?

nicbou 4y ago

There is the assumption that it can be monetised, but at some point it feels like wishful thinking: get billions of users then figure out a path to monetisation. In reality, the right path is to establish a strong monopoly and enforce a toll road on everyone. Everyone buys through Amazon, but only sponsored listings sell. Everyone buys in-app, and there's a 30% cut for the app store. Everyone dates on Tinder, but only boosted profiles get dates. You get the idea.

Swenrekcah 4y ago
Also if you’ve got enough attention then forget about direct monetisation and go straight for political power.
- fallingknife 4y ago
  Unfortunately, I think this is the future. We already had one reality TV star president. We have a TV "doctor," and a football player running for senate this year. I wouldn't be at all surprised if a lot of social media influencers end up in office. This is, of course, if the internet platforms remain relatively open. The other scenario (and I think more likely) is that the internet media platforms will use the political power that their gatekeeper status confers on them to promote their own narrow interests. They will form their own content arms which will be algorithmically favored, and cut the old legacy media gatekeepers out entirely. Pick your poison.
  - merely-unlikely 4y ago
    > Unfortunately, I think this is the future. Not just the future, more like the status quo. There is a centuries long history of business tycoons buying media outlets for their own purposes. Social media platforms and influencers are just a new flavor.
    - Swenrekcah 4y ago
      To some extent but the unprecedented reach and real time factor of social media, along with the precise targeting and personal data archives from Stasi’s wet dreams makes this really a new era rather than simply more of the same, in my opinion.

nonameiguess 4y ago

It's not always about being monetized. Politicians command attention in order to win votes, and as most people running for office were already rich and are doing it more for ego than to get even richer, I don't believe money is often the motivation. Sports teams seem like another possible counterexample, where being in a larger market with a more prestigious history and larger fanbase can attract better players in free agency, which may lead to more money, but may not, and I again don't believe many of the owners, who were already rich well before they ever bought a team, are necessarily in it to get even richer. They just really like winning and also have enormous egos. Some celebrities will command attention even to the point of losing money. Witness what Kanye is doing right now, though you can argue in his case and probably others what we're seeing is mental illness, but pathological motivations still count as motivations. You might say these are a minority of cases compared to businesses trying to command eyeballs so they can sell you stuff, but I'm really not sure that proportionality stays the same when you take the entire human experience into account. My keenest memories of people trying to command lots of attention are from primary school, and kids weren't interested in being class clown or the most popular because they expected to be able to sell you anything. Popularity was its own reward. Commanding attention is plenty intoxicating all on its own.

slim 4y ago

it is valuable primarily because there is an expectation that it can be monetized your argument is circular. you are defining the value of attention in terms of money, then you dismiss defining it as a currency because (my interpretation) it is an asset or a good. it's like saying that the value of an apple lies in it's monetisation, if nobody buys it it means it has no value attention has value because it's a resource. there's only number-of-people-on-earth quantity of attention at each moment to extract. if you don't extract it it's gone. you also need to compete for it because there's not enough for everybody. the good news is attention is probably the less discriminating resource on earth. every human has exactly the same amount of it* *caveat : the fact you have an equal amount of attention does not imply you can manage it optimally.

extantproject 4y ago
> every human has exactly the same amount of it Any evidence of this? https://archive.ph/RkwhK https://archive.ph/RkwhK

hinkley 4y ago

And you're making the mistake of equating money and power. Power gets you money, but money doesn't necessarily get you power. It can take generations for New Money to be treated as a peer in some very important circles. For all the titanically, record-setting dumb stuff Trump has said, he was right about one thing. Filing for bankruptcy (three times?) didn't make him poor. He just needed to collect more favors denominated in cash than he gave out in order to get back on his feet. Influence is not taxed, and for all the noise we make about taxing the rich fairly, that will only slow them down a little. There is an exchange rate between attention and influence. Yes those systems are fueled by money, but in the same way a heat pump is fueled by electricity - highly leveraged.