Dear Hivers,
In 2017, it was a different game with new players making new promises. These blockchain players plotted a better future. Fair to say back then the attention economy was receiving serious attention.
But things have changed now!
In fact, in the last three years, if you look at any of these platform, you will discover a bitter truth.
For example, pick any:
- Synereo
- Lunyr
- Invest Feed
- Peerity
- Akasha
And so on…
You will discover these “attention economy” platforms are almost dead. There’s little to no activity. Almost like an abandoned school in the middle of nowhere.
So what is happening here? How can these platforms fail to earn any attention?
In fact, I have been observing social media platforms outside of blockchain. They are really good at capturing the audience, isn't it?
Take Facebook. Instagram. Twitter.
All of them started with attention and then moved onto something else. They moved onto activity. To put it simply: In order to gain attention, they have a mechanism. This mechanism is an activity.
For example: On Facebook, you have the like button (an activity).
Instagram, you have the “tap” option. Twitter, there’s a like and RT option. All of them, of course, are designed to pull us into their platform.
The same principles are visible on Hive too. Here, voting is an activity.
It Is More Than Attention Now!
We are no longer in the attention economy industry. Everything has turned more into attention-for-action economy. There is no pure attention model where the end-user doesn’t have to take any action.
If you think about it, this is truly a new challenge for publishers.
Imagine a scenario where the reader doesn't do activity and doesn't take any action. How will you reward the publisher?
And if the reader does take an action, it also invites a new trouble. They can come and abuse the platform for their selfish gains. These abusers are the ones selling likes on Facebook, followers on Instagram, and Twitter accounts in bulk.
Activities can be abused.
Where are we going with this? Think about Hive for a moment. There is no way to measure the quality of the article. We only measure it through the number of votes received.
Again, what if a bunch of folks form a group — and self-vote each other? It could be a mini-group of friends. And we have seen this happening before — it will continue to happen even now.
In no time, capitalism enters — and we begin to witness members inside their group support each other, leaving the rest OUT.
This is an ongoing problem yet to be solved. One company I believe that is fighting this abuse is Medium.
Now, of course, Medium is a competitor — and it doesn’t rewards the readers. It does, however, reward publishers.
Initially, like votes, Medium had claps. Depending on who is clapping — you will get rewarded anywhere between 1 cent to a dollar per clap.
This was, of course, quickly abused.
Looking Beyond Votes
That is where Medium decided to change its mechanism. The activity (clap) did not make any sense. And so they started paying publishers based on time.
If a reader spends a lot of time on the article, the publisher gets paid a lot more.
Based on this post:
On a day when the average daily reading time for all members is 5 minutes, the earning rate would be $0.1 divided by 5 minutes or $0.02/minute.
Again, this may not be a perfect model but this is where the attention economy is headed.
We are moving from visible activity to an invisible activity. From action to inaction. And it would be lovely to see more projects coming up with such innovative ideas.
Perhaps on Hive we can implement something like this — and it will be a game-changer. Articles that deliver quality will start earning rewards based on the time spent by the reader.
It is just an idea — one that can be the foundation of our future.
Over to you: What are your thoughts? What do you think of the future? Is attention abused? Do you see something new? I would love to hear from you.
Cheers,
Sid