In 2026 different platforms algorithm (Facebook, Twitter and YouTube) have tweaked their system to prioritize contents that are better optimized for retention.
This means that while places like YouTube are meant for visual learning, the system wants to prioritize contents that users will: rewatch multiple times, spend time on, click owner's channel and stay on the content.
To the system, the ability to capture retention equates value, while I agree to an extent, I don't completely agree, but I guess this is how attention and retention is currently measured. This means that a creator is no longer expected to just "pass or share value".
As far as the system is concerned you're just a creator and you need to prove that what you can do is universally valuable and one of them is learning the art of retention.
Wait, this post was supposed to be how to make quick money right?
Of course, but you clicked with skepticism and was definitely sure there was no secret hack, afterall I am broke too.
You're definitely right.
There's no secret money anywhere but isn't it fascinating that titles or thumbnails like that generates interests? Inasmuch as people are punished or not take seriously for using clickbaits, it's definitely one of the best ways to actually get the attention of someone while making them stay.
For free or not?
There are so many valuable information in the world but a lot of people who holds these informations aren't going to share them for free.
However these doesn't mean there aren't true life-changing informations on the internet; blogs, videos and whatnot, but you'd probably come across 99% fake and clickbait informations before you actually find that 1% value, and most of the time over 80% of people have already given up as well, and maybe only a few gets to keep digging until they find that 1% as well.
This isn't about money alone. I've found informations for free on places like YouTube and if I honestly hadn't found them, I'd be paying a cheat in life who would have basically cheated me and collected money from me.
AI will continue to steal jobs
In 2026, the likes of CLAUDE and CHATGPT ads stealing jobs and replacing humans, and funny enough we humans are happy to get paid to train these models, unfortunately people forget that these training we give these AIs is us preparing a future where there will be no jobs for our kids and future generations, because we've trained them so well they can now do these jobs better.
However for now, we're still at that early stages and we might not be alive to see that future. AI creating is why people are currently struggling with attention span.
People's attention span is currently messed up that we'd prefer a comic video of a person dancing more than a 20 minute engineering video, and funny enough this wasn't the same 10 years ago.
AIs are honestly better creators and we can see them everywhere, from tiktok to YouTube and Twitter and they're just so good it's difficult to rival them in specialty and skills, and funny thing is that it's actually us that trained them to be so good, and now they'll replace us, and probably obliterated the chances of the future generations making money off digital skills, but currently everyone is now teaching how to use AI to make money and more AI models are being pumped into the system.
I guess it's adapt or die, and honestly I don't know if it's only me who think AI creative tendencies are becoming too dominant. Recently I saw a few things that Claude could actually do and I was scared, blown away and somehow concerned, although I think the disparity is now that you'd have to pay a lot of money in subscription fees to be able to unlock these possibilities and this might be a limiting factor, but for how long?