Undifferentiated mass attention only becomes valuable to advertisers at enormous scale.

Evidence

Day’s idea was not to offer such a notice board but rather to sell his readers’ attention en bloc to more substantial advertisers. But for such undifferentiated attention to be valuable to anyone, he would have to amass a giant readership. That would mean making the New York Sun alluring to the broadest segment of society—by any means necessary. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 29

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels the mass-audience imperative later seen with broadcast radio, television, and modern platforms — the scale-or-nothing logic of attention markets. — connects to: Subscriptions capture deeper sustained attention than the fragmented kind advertising harvests — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1098; Attention can be quantitatively measured and thereby bought and sold. — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!: A Manifesto of the…, 121

Broader Connections

• Subscriptions capture deeper sustained attention than the fragmented kind advertising harvests #qualifies (0.78) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1098
• Attention can be quantitatively measured and thereby bought and sold. #qualifies (0.75) — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 121