Attention
April 07, 2026
We’ve finally reached a time where we have enormously more content than ability to pay attention to that content in terms of time.
The causes
- Social Media - People started creating without any barrier of entry. This completely removed anything even resembling a standard of quality on content people consume.
- AI - I lied in the previous paragraph. Spending time on content creation was the last thing even resembling a standard of quality. AI came in and demolished that. Now you can create a piece of content in seconds. Heck, pay for a service like OpenClaw and create content on autopilot without spending any time on it.
The effects
- Attention Inflation - The attention being paid to content is much more superficial than it used to be. We’re all searching for something increasingly more curated to our use case, present mood, or goals, with little ability to compromise on any of these.
- Reversion to Intentional Consumption - Dopamine does not cut it anymore. Soon the days of overly-dopamine producing video thumbnails or carousel slides will be over. In a sea of media like that people start wanting “no bullshit just tell me what this is and I’ll decide if it’s for me”.
- Silent Launches - Launching a brand or channel doesn’t exist anymore. You can only launch a product or series now if you already have the audience. The brand or channel is 100% a prerequisite now, you have to have it before even thinking about putting the work in for a product or series. Quietly drop value for free, build the audience, reap the rewards with products or series.
- Audience is King. Product is Servant. - This was kind of a trope before as well, I mean thinking about your audience when creating the product. But before, you were fighting 3 competitors in your niche that had put in the time to build the skill necessary for building your product and also the time necessary to build the product. Now you’re fighting at least 10 competitors out of which at least 7 didn’t put in any time. How do you get back to 3? You put in the time to understand your audience and remove time from building. You build in a niche you deeply understand or have a pathway to deeply understanding.