So, many of the punters of our times refer to our era as "the attention economy."
We have so many different ways in which we can publish our content whether it's our opinion, our advice, our entertainment or whatever, that we're all out there looking for a little slice of the "attention pie."
Of course, more and more players enter the market all the time and so it becomes increasingly challenging to get anybody to notice you.
This morning, I was watching one of my favorite podcasts — which I have been following for quite a long time. I always enjoyed it because there were incisive questions asked of interesting guests and it was a long form (generally about two hours) casual interview format, and usually allowed experts in various fields to express their expertise in some depth.
As I said, I've been watching this podcast for some time and one of the things I've noticed is a gradual "evolution" over the last few years from headlines — and content — that used to be pretty serious and on point towards increasingly more controversial and sensationalist headlines and content that often smells more like clickbait than anything else.
I should add to this by saying that this is a pretty successful podcaster with a following of close to 12 million subscribers. So we're not talking about fringe drilling nut jobs here.
So what's my point here?
Looking behind the obvious default commentary that "we're slowly descending into idiocracy," I suppose the attention industry is also experiencing much the same as we have watched in other parts of the business world. The whole idea of being part of an industry of YouTubers, or content creators in general, is gradually becoming oversaturated, as a result of which simply pitching what is authentically interesting and relevant is increasingly turning out to be not enough.
But let's consider a couple of examples from the past:
If you look back to the birth of video stores in the 1980s (when the idea of watching movies at home on demand was a completely new), we started off with just a few video stores but after a while we reached the point where everybody was opening a video store. Consequently there really wasn't enough demand for watching home movies to support the fact that there was a video store on both corners of every block and probably one in between the two and so they all started going out of business, and on their way down they offered increasingly ridiculous "specials" in attempts to get people to come in.
Similarly, consider the news media. Once upon a time, watching the 9:00 o'clock Evening News was a matter of listening to a well presented and very serious newscaster literally talking about how this and that happened. But with the fragmentation of networks and subsequently cable news channels there were more and more outlets clamoring for pretty much the same number of viewers and so the news went from simply being a reporting of events that happened to "infotainment."
That particular industry continues to be in its late stage where screaming sensationalist headlines has replaced the news and more and more people are trying to eke out a share of a market that actually only has a specific number of eyeballs available.
Which brings us back to aforementioned podcaster who — likely in order to continue growing his channel — has perhaps been advised that he needs to take on more edgy and sensationalist coverage to get people to continue watching.
Frankly, I think that's a great shame!
But I think that's only one part of the equation. If you look at the broader expanse of the human experience our expectations of life have changed considerably over the past 50 years or so.
For the most part, when you went into a restaurant in 1975 you likely did so because you wanted some really good food. In 2025 it is much more likely that when you go into a restaurant you want that food to entertain you as well as feed you.
We humans seem to have developed this insatiable need to be entertained by absolutely everything that happens in our lives!
Over the years ostensible experts have talked about the gamification of social media, and even the gamification of workplaces, but I think we are reaching rapidly a stage where we are trying to gamify every conveivable aspect of our lives!
Maybe I'm just an old fart and out of touch with the times, but I don't really want my entire life to be a game. Which is not saying that I fear what's going on right now so much as I dread looking at the development over the past 50 years and then extrapolating those changes 50 years forward.
All I can say is I'm glad I won't be alive then! That said, some part of me worries for the futures of our grandkids and I can only hope that whatever they grow up an age into thinking of as normal life represent some statements of progress not regress.
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great week ahead!
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Created at 2025.08.17 23:58 PST
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