The attention economy captures pre-existing human communities onto platforms to monetize them

Evidence

For decades, the basic business plan of entrepreneurs in the attention economy has been the same: find groups of people with shared attentional commitments and relationships; penetrate that “market” and “capture” it, by seducing, cajoling, or winning it onto a scalable digital platform; monetize the bejeezus out of this new captive audience (by means of data extraction and associated advertising opportunities). REPEAT! — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 324

Categorization

• DEFINE: Sets up the vocabulary (market capture, monetization) framing the whole extraction machinery.
• XREF: connects to: The attention economy has captured control of how cultures dream — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!: A Manifesto of the…, 435; Third parties capture most economic value from eyewitness viral stars — Crystal Abidin, Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame…, 161; Platform profit does not come from exploiting labor but from commodifying social life itself — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 144 (+1 more)