Huh, my take on this has always been the opposite. Friction is how the "attention economy" makes money. You can't monetize people's attention directly - but you

Huh, my take on this has always been the opposite. Friction is how the "attention economy" makes money. You can't monetize people's attention directly - but you can throw in friction - ads, dark patterns - in the way of people. Like a metaphorical donkey on a treadmill hooked up to a dynamo, attention is how you make people chase your carrot; friction is how you slowly bleed them out of their money. In this view, friction is bad - and the reason I've been using this metaphor for years, it because it makes it clear the reason tech sucks is intentional - the parts that suck are the parts that make money. EDIT: More aligned with the article, you could say that attention economy strategically manages friction; it removes it where the article is looking for them, and placing it elsewhere. You can imagine the user to be a wooden ball, rolling around until they fall into a pit structured like this: \ / \ / \ / \ / ** ** * * ******* That is: low friction when they fall into the hole, moderate friction (sandpaper) as they tumble around inside it, chasing rewards or fulfillment or just wanting the software to do the promised job - that's the part that continuously extracts value - and very high friction (spikes) should they want to try and leave the hole.