Money for nothin' and clicks for free

I wish that I had the habit of screenshotting the news headlines to illustrate the multiple personality disorder that there apparently is, where one day it is "crypto is the future", the next it is, "what a scam" and then a day later, "How you can get into crypto today!". While this is manipulation of the reader base, it isn't to get them to necessarily buy or sell crypto, it is for clicks - just more clickbait headlines to attract attention and drive Time on Site numbers and generate advertising revenue.

It doesn't matter what the headline is, because people are generally polarized in the views, it pulls the attention of both sides. With every "Crypto sky is falling post", crypto people are going to be attracted based on their own experience and knowledge, often to disagree or justify what is said in the article. Negative No-coiners are also attracted to it as while they have no monetary skin in the game, based on their knowledge and experience, they want to show how stupid crypto people are and use the articles published in mainstream media as their ammunition, regardless of how flawed they may be.

Once upon a time, news was a service that was valuable because it was able to gather and disseminate information across an audience of individuals that couldn't get this information for themselves. However, due to the success of the format and the ability to direct thought and activity, it quickly moved from service to a product packaged for the sale of ideas, with those ideas (or ideals) being driven by the highest bidder. The "service" of it isn't for the audience and consumer, it is for the paying broadcaster and the product they are buying, is our attention.

While we often focus on time as the most precious resource we have, it is not actually the case. It is our attention that has the value as no matter how much time we have available to us, if we aren't paying attention to how we use it, we are going to waste the potential we have.

I was talking with a client about this the other day in regards to how we entertain ourselves, where I was saying that when I was a kid, my parents were often too busy to do a lot of things. But, while they were busy, they didn't watch television often, nor read magazines or the newspaper - they were always busy doing something. My dad was an artist and he would often be found painting, my mother would often be found sitting at a sewing machine, making curtains for our windows or costumes for my sister's ballet events. There were obviously other things too, but they never really seemed to be sitting around as consumers, yet they never seemed to be looking for something to do.

the other day I was thinking more about this, as I was clicking across some DeFi yield platforms to have a look at how they were performing, as well as some exchanges for the same reason. What I realized is that while I felt like I was doing something useful, a lot of the time I was spending on these things wasn't doing anything much at all and I was spending far too much time just consuming the pages for no return.

It is an interesting thing to consider as at least for the yield platforms, it is meant to be relatively passive income, but the time spent with our attention on them, comes with an opportunity cost. For example, I have heard about people (and been like this at times too) where the markets are going up and they spend time refreshing their balances to see what the gains are, but not actually acting on the information. It can be different for a trader, but they wouldn't be looking at total balances, they would be looking at the individual assets, I assume. What I was thinking is whether it is the "best way" to spend time, which means weighing up the cost in reference to other available opportunities.

In some ways, it is much like the suggestion to turn off notifications or check emails once or twice a day, instead of getting notifications as they arrive. The reason it is suggested concerns our attention, or more accurately, the breaking of attention that the notifications force. We end up having our focus interrupted and then split across multiple targets, with us unable to fully utilize our time well, to take advantage of the resources we have.

I believe that it is partly because of this splitting of attention that we have become less creative, combined with much of the focus of our attention being driven to consume content that doesn't inspire us to create. Not only that, the content we consume "steals" time from us as we consume it in various ways too, including diminishing our ability to complete tasks effectively and efficiently. Even the act of consumption itself is poorly performed, which is why so many of us tend to read or skim only parts of articles, which I think is by design, through an inundation of content, most of it very low value.

It is a funny thing, as while the original premise for the news media was to bring "new" information to the audience, it has largely become a place of echo-chambering, where we consume to confirm our beliefs. Social media doubles down on this, as we are ale to take our confirmation bias and share it with others, as evidence that we are right in our beliefs. This then sets up for social polarization and argument, which drives more activity, clicks and shares and based on the drama, the news media will create stories that polarize us further, as well as segment us more precisely to sell our attention to their customers - the advertisers pushing their ideals of the products and thoughts they want us to buy.

The saying is, "if you aren't paying for it, you are the product" but this is only half the story, as even when we are paying for it, we are also the product, as we buy and consume goods and services and then promote them in our feeds to grab the attention of other consumers. We are the vehicles the media drives, fleet cars that work to give them clicks free, so they can make money for nothing.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]