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?