Interpersonal relationships were the final unconquered frontier for attention merchants

Evidence

Ultimately it also suggests how incomplete the conquest of human attention was from the 1910s through 1960s, even after television had entered the home. For, though it had breached the private sphere, the domain of the interpersonal remained inviolate. In retrospect it was virgin territory for attention merchants, though before the home computer one couldn’t conceive how this attention might be commercialized. Certainly no one had ever considered the possibility of advertising messages over the telephone—before one placed a call, for instance—not that the telephone was in need of a business model. And so, as AOL finally turned to the reselling of attention, it brought the commercial model of the attention merchant to one of the last spaces thought sacred—our personal relationships. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 724

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Frames the commercialization of the social sphere as the completion of the attention conquest arc begun in the 1910s — a genuinely unifying conceptual claim for the whole book’s thesis.
• XREF: Directly pays off the book’s core thesis about the expanding conquest of attention, echoing earlier chapters on broadcast radio and television breaching the home. — connects to: Social interaction proved a stronger attention lure than traditional content — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 723; Social networks disguised attention capture beneath promises of connection. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 973; Attention merchants now shape the course of human lives and futures — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1143

Broader Connections

• Social networks disguised attention capture beneath promises of connection. #corroborates (0.85) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 973
• Social interaction proved a stronger attention lure than traditional content #corroborates (0.80) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 723
• Attention merchants now shape the course of human lives and futures #expands (0.80) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1143