[TeMPOraL]

> So he's using the same bit of friction that this article is trying to solve, to fill his rice bowl.

You spelled out exactly what the attention economy is about. Friction. The money is made on friction. Waste - of time, of cognitive effort, of emotions good and bad.

I feel sorry for this guy, but at the same time, I wish people recognized that attention economy isn't about some nebulous attention you have too much of and don't feel when it's being taken. On the contrary, attention is stolen through friction, and the sum of everyone who "fills their rice bowls" this way is why the web and so many processes and activities on-line feel like shit and remain painfully wasteful.

[mwigdahl]

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[jader201]

I get it, but most content -- that you and I find helpful in so many different cases -- exists because it can be monetized.

And, to your point, friction-based monetization is one of the more effective ways to monetize your content.

If you can't monetize your content, what's the point in creating it? Creating a lot of this content takes time, and therefore many people won't create it if it's not worth their time.

If the world would just start paying directly for content (e.g. via Patreon), and if that was the only monetization needed, then maybe we could remove the painful friction (or other painful methods of monetization). But unfortunately, this will probably never be sufficient on its own.

[RugnirViking]

I create content, heck i'm doing it right now, without being paid. Some is relatevly low value (but not none, I can see you like to spend time reading hn comments) but some ive made has touched thousands of people and been high effort stuff. Am I crazy? am I simply irrational?

No. People will create without incentive. put multiple humans in a box and wait, and culture will spontaneously be generated. Income is not, never will be, and has never, been a nessacary part of this equation.

In general ive observed a tragic cycle of vibrant communities blossoming into existence where everyone created because they want to, people have healthy engagement with it and get primarily positive vibes. Then over time, money invades, starts paying a select few of the creators and arbitrarily excluding others with no partiuclar pattern. Bad vibes ensue, and even those paid have to run in place and burn out. Content quality suffers, becoming less about creative expression and making audience happy, and more about extracting clicks, money, ads, buy, subscribe, like

[TeMPOraL]

> I get it, but most content -- that you and I find helpful in so many different cases -- exists because it can be monetized.

That's a tragedy and it didn't use to be like this. In the past, you could use "exists to be monetized" as synonym to "garbage" and effectively filter such content[0] out of your browsing. Friction-based monetization is a giant "fuck you" to the user, so you can rightfully expect the quality and trustworthiness of content to match that attitude. The heuristic is still 100% valid, but it's increasingly hard to find anything other than content made for monetization[1].

I mean:

> If you can't monetize your content, what's the point in creating it?

The answer to that is, "you shouldn't".

> Creating a lot of this content takes time, and therefore many people won't create it if it's not worth their time.

Then those people should find a different, productive activity, and leave the "content creation" to people who are baffled at the question above, because for them, the reason is obvious - "because I can", or "for status", or "pay it forward", or "this would help others", or "the world would be a better place if people knew this thing I know". And none of that precludes asking people to pay for access.

> If the world would just start paying directly for content (e.g. via Patreon), and if that was the only monetization needed, then maybe we could remove the painful friction

No, let's not reverse the order in which things happened. Paying directly for content used to be the norm. It's nigh-impossible now, because everyone and their dog zeroed in on the perfect anti-competitive hack: free but with ads. This prevent almost all honest competition, because unless you have enough surplus to fund your creation yourself, you can't compete with free.

--

[0] - The use of the term "content" on its own implies we're dealing with facsimile without soul.

[1] - It's not that it doesn't exist - but rather, all the major platforms are, overtly or covertly, advertising platforms, so they both enable garbage peddlers and promote the garbage, because that's what pays their bills. In this way, it's not the centralization of the Internet alone that's the problem - it's centralization into platforms with structurally malicious incentives.

[tshaddox]

> The answer to that is, "you shouldn't".

Unless you enjoy it. Like the huge number of content creators who make little to no money on it, plus the huge number of content creators who do make money on it now but before they were able to.

[incahoots]

>exists because it can be monetized

This in itself is a huge problem. The internet used to be a beacon of hope for information sharing, now it's all behind paywalls...to the point of ad-nauseam.

I understand not everything should be "free", but it's nearly impossible to access anything without the need for an account, pay to access it, get bombarded with adverts, reminded to "like & subscribe"....it's shit.

[webdood90]

the guy deserves to be compensated for his efforts. I think this is a pretty pessimistic take.

[incahoots]

This is a slippery slope because now we're entering a stage where we're commodifying hobbies to the point that it stops being fun, and starts being another product or service that needs to be paid for, whereas previously, it was shared due to passion of said hobby.

I'm seeing it in one of the oldest hobbies I still entertain, RC cars. Small shops have all but went under, everyone buys from the internet, and when you can't figure out how to repair something, you're paying a massive fee for a specialist to figure it out. Adults can deal with this begrudgingly, but this was a child focused hobby primarily, and now we're pricing them out of it.

[krageon]

But he doesn't deserve to steal from me to get it.