I don't really pay attention to social media much but apparently there are families in my country that put their entire lives on YouTube and have a million subscribers.
No idea why anyone would watch that but I'm sure I'm the weirdo.
No idea why anyone would watch that but I'm sure I'm the weirdo.
The Attention Economy accidentally came into being taking advantage of the inequality above without anyone knowing about the inequality itself.
People have a need for attention. Advertisers have a need for attention for their products. The platforms had a need for cash to keep all their freebies running (search, chat, video, social, email, streaming etc) and make sense/filter down exploding Information the internet produced.
These 3 needs accidentally came together, with no one having any clue about Goldharbers inequality and we get the absurdity that currently exists.
The original problem being solved - how to handle the info explosion was forgotten. Everyone got side tracked into how to capture attention. And then they got rich.
The question today is knowing much more abt the inequality and still facing the ever increasing Info overload problem, how do we build better less exploitative systems?
Previously, I didn't know any of my friends (or their friends) flew private jets or stayed in $1000/night resorts regularly. Someone in town might have a nicer house or nicer car, but I didn't see them (or their kids) flaunting or humblebragging on social media about where they did spend their money.
Unironically it's probably much worse with kids because they don't have the social mores & filter to understand what they shouldn't be posting.
There's a lot of "stealth wealth" that has lost it's stealth out there due to this.
Its a black hole from which there is no escape. The only mechanism accepted by society is monetary profit and there is no way a less exploitative system will be more profitable.