Ask HN: Where does the attention economy end?

10 points

5 years ago

I can see how one's attention is valuable but hits a point of diminishing returns. At the extreme, one's attention is not valuable if that person spends his or her entire day consuming apps and not creating value (or working). His or her ad revenue will be worth less than someone with a job, if it is worth anything at all. This person will also use a lot of the organization's resources and have a high amount of "engagement" with the application.

This makes Facebook's shift to young adults [1] seem more clear - that group can spend as much time as they want on Facebook and consumption, and they can then spend their parents' income. It's a constant fresh source of income with buying power.

I roughly equate attention to time and energy - once it is spent, it is gone. On the whole, as billions of people spend their time and energy scrolling through ad-supported applications, their attention becomes less valuable over time. Do you think that the time and energy spent on ad-supported applications is pulling from users' productivity? Or just transferring it from other forms of recreation?

I don't quite think I'm hitting the mark here, but I'd like to know your thoughts on if the attention economy is sustainable in its current state. Have we hit peak "attention" and the only new users left are kids in middle school and high school? I think this would make for interesting discussion with recent headlines and revelations about the major companies in the space [2].

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/25/22745622/facebook-young-adults-refocusing-teams

[2] Impact from Apple on SNAP, Facebook revelations, HN headlines recently involving Google... it goes on.

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