Herd attention results from profit logic, not algorithms themselves

Evidence

If there is a danger that herd behaviour is intensifying, this probably isn’t happening as a result of this or that algorithm, but as a result of the narrowly mercantile logic in which the development of the internet is allowing itself to become entangled. Even if our petty individual narcissism dreams of placing us at the centre of the media world, the phenomena of alignment, convergence, synchronization and concentration of attention brought about by PageRank would remain innocent enough if the attention economy wasn’t completely overdetermined by the quest for a financial profit that has now been elevated to a condition of survival. — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 223

Categorization

• XREF: This is the Frankfurt School bridge in miniature: commodity-form determinism applied to digital platforms, echoing Adorno and Horkheimer’s culture industry thesis. — connects to: Surveillance capitalist experiments exploit knowledge asymmetry to engineer user behavior for profit — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 934; Attention is a filtering mechanism that shapes decision-making — Thomas Davenport & John Beck, The Attention Economy: Understanding…, 12; Lean platforms only profit from frequent, low-skill, non-trainable tasks — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 94 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Surveillance capitalist experiments exploit knowledge asymmetry to engineer user behavior for profit #corroborates (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 934
• Attention is a filtering mechanism that shapes decision-making #qualifies (0.70) — Thomas Davenport & John Beck, The Attention Economy, 12