YouTube’s shift to pre-roll ads revealed the free-lunch trick of attention merchants
Evidence
YouTube, now a Google subsidiary, offers perhaps the starkest example of the change. Once entirely ad-free, by the mid-2010s many of its videos required users to watch a fifteen or thirty-second commercial to see a few minutes of content, making television’s terms look almost respectful by comparison. That priceless impression of getting great stuff for free, the attention merchant’s most essential magic trick, was losing its charm. As with any bit of legerdemain, once the actual workings are revealed, the strings made visible, it becomes ugly and obvious, drained of its power to enchant. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1087
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to earlier chapters on how the attention economy’s ‘free’ content model always eventually hitched to advertising; parallels the similar revelations about radio and TV that Wu documents. — connects to: Business models now give goods away free in exchange for user attention.; Platform profits come from harvesting user attention and selling it back to advertisers — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 43; AOL pivoted from ad-free service to monetizing its user base as an attention merchant — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 727 (+4 more)
Broader Connections
- Ad-supported media sell audiences’ attention, not content, to advertisers
#expands(0.85) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 219 - Advertising industrialized attention by converting it into a resellable commodity
#expands(0.82) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 24 - Algorithmic platforms made ad revenue independent of brand quality or gatekeeping
#corroborates(0.75)