The world is changing before your eyes — we have entered the next phase of human history where the scarcity which drives the progress of capitalism has shifted from Capital (money) to Attention.
Used to be that a companies access to finance, or lack thereof, determined its likelihood to survive, grow and thrive.
Now money is exponentially more accessible and attention is what people are seeking to acquire.
Of course money is still a determining factor in that game — more money equals more advertising on facebook and google — but it is not the most important thing. You can pay for all the ads in the world, but if you are not holding attention you are burning cash.
Yet attention is mercurial
It slips from our grasp and is almost impossible to maintain. A confluence of factors, instant gratification from notifications, accessibility to time sapping social media feeds, unprogrammed content accessible at the touch of a button, have coalesced to give us less free time than any generation in history.
We are busy all the time and if you’re not what’s wrong with you?
Everyone is so busy nobody does anything anymore
Technology has taken a moment to understand how the grains have shifted.
What we are seeing now is a reaction against the status quo. A reclamation project has emerged, democratising your attention in a way that is designed to occupy it more fully for a shorter, more intense scheduled period of time. Our attention spans are shortening — yet technology is attempting to re-engineer it.
HQ Trivia and Sip by PoductHunt are the most famous and recent examples of this. They are very interesting for a number of reason but by far is the indication that instantaneous gratification and connectivity has went too far. These types of businesses can be seen clearly as a reaction against what exists.
Scheduled content — which is only released at certain times — gives back control. Focus is diverted to certain things, while it is maintained on the things that matter. Notifications are depressed in favour of certainty.
On demand is replaced by on schedule.
You are endowed with the opportunity to choose. To participate or not and if you don’t there is no opportunity to watch back or join in at a later date. Scarcity is embraced to drive attention. If you miss it, its gone.
Used to be the case that was true every day. If you missed a TV show you fell behind and could never catch up
Now you have access to everything all the time
These new businesses are reinterpreting an existing business model, with the benefit of technology providing access and notification that an event is about to begin, allowing them to drive excitement and egagement TV never could.
Where will things go from here?
For me the next phase of this evolution is fairly clear: scheduled access to specific content and services and automisation of desktop workflow where certain programmes open at specific times, only allowing you that time to utilise that programme.
Effectively, this is a curation of your daily schedule, disabling your opportunity to waste time through lack of focus.
Suppression of distractions taken to a natural conclusion
This is achieved by disabling your ability to access alternative content entirely. Workflow is scheduled for the day removing the opportunity for spontaneity or distraction.
How often do you check email currently each day?
Image your email service popping up twice a day where you are permitted a predetermined period of time to respond to what is important.
The interesting use case will be the integration of this with AI. Tech is allowed to devolve to become like newspaper release. Possibly two versions released a day. Attention can be shorter but more focused.
The re-framing of technology through cultivated scarcity is fascinating. It enables different types of interactions between indivudals who can only participate or consume at the same time. This community element is tremendously powerful. Discussion and collaboration is encouraged in a way that can’t occur with most current technology. Where tech has split us apart and isolated us, there is a move to bring us back together through manufactured scheduled content.
When services follow the real revolution can begin.
Slot machine of attention unplugged and disposed of