“Attention as the Currency of the Internet Age: The Most Valuable Asset in the New World”

The war in the “new-new world” is being fought for your attention. History provides context to the present, brings clarity to events, and helps predict the future.

“Leverage” moves the world by allowing maximum change with minimal effort. Different levers rose and fell throughout the ages, and their wielders ruled the world. Until the dawn of the 21st century, the economic history of humans revolved around the leveraged forces of land and capital.

In the “old world,” whoever controlled the most land or money could enforce their will and create the world as they wanted it to be far more quickly than an ordinary person.

However, in the “new world,” the leverage has changed. The new leverage is ATTENTION. Before we dive into that, here’s how land and capital operated as leverage.

LAND

1. The total land supply in the world is 510.1 million km².
2. Land supply is finite — they have stopped manufacturing it — unless you’re the Prince of Monaco willing to spend $11 billion adding a mere 12.5 acres of reclaimed land to your principality.
3. 100% of the land on this earth is owned by someone — a government, an institution, or an individual. Only an ownership change happens now, i.e., purchase or sale.
4. 95% of the world’s population is concentrated on just 10% of the world’s surface land area, limited and demarcated by borders.
5. Every war in ancient history was fought for land, from Alexander’s conquests to the wars of Caesar, since the land was a limited resource and critical to survival.
6. With land came food, fresh water for survival, and natural resources such as ores and wood from forests — critical for powering industrial sectors and propagating prosperous growth.
7. The power of kingdoms was measured by the land and resources they controlled and influenced. The Greek, Roman, and British Empires were all testaments to this simple fact.
8. In the old world, the royals — kings, and queens — sponsored sailing voyages to find ‘new land’ to claim, colonize and expand their territory.
9. Elon Musk is the modern-day equivalent of Columbus, sending rockets into outer space to colonize Mars and access more land and resources. As a context, Mars is about 40% the size of our planet and is recognized as vital to the continuity of civilization on Earth.

The ‘Old World’ formula was: More Land = More Food & Resources = More Power.

After the wars and the agricultural revolution (leveraged by land) came the Industrial Era, and the leverage shifted to Capital.

CAPITAL

1. The total amount of money in the world is roughly $100 trillion, while precious stones and gold (above ground) are valued at approximately $9–10 trillion.
2. Precious metals and gold were finite and limited in earlier human history, making them highly valued as currency.
3. During the Industrial era, central bankers introduced fiat currency such as the Dollar and Pound Sterling, which were fungible and transferable legal tenders, with supply controlled by the owners (central bankers). This led to monetary-economic events such as expansion and contraction cycles and inflation bubbles.
4. Capital was necessary for commerce and control, fueling the industrial economy and serving as a means to purchase land, labor, and raw material resources. The leverage of capital bestowed power and control upon those who acquired it more than others.
5. Those who traditionally controlled capital remained the most influential people in the world, with families like Morgan, Rothschild, and Carnegie serving as prime examples.

“Industrial World” Formula: More Capital = More Resources = More Power.

However, in the last decade of the 20th century, with the birth of the internet, the leverage shifted to “Attention.”

ATTENTION

1. Attention is the currency and most valuable asset in the new ‘new world.’
2. Attention is finite, scattered, and moves the world. Value is created when attention is focused.

1. ‘Attention’ is measurable in units of time and distributed across human waking hours, depending on income levels, geographic location, internet access, and age.
2. The lever of ‘Attention’ draws value from the Time Premium Principle.
3. The shift in ‘Attention’ is tangible when transitioning from old economic models to the new economy. Millennials spend more attention on global content accessible through mobile devices compared to traditional attention-gathering media (TV and newspapers).
4. All wars in the new world are fought for consumers’ attention. Every technology giant, whether Google, Facebook, Apple, or Amazon, seeks attention and tries to capture it within its platform.
5. People or platforms controlling the maximum ‘attention mass’ are this era’s most dominant personalities and companies, such as Facebook and Google.
6. The total available annual attention in the world is approximately ‘N’ billion hours, and it is spent in various ways.

9. Currently, 3.2 billion people have access to the internet, leaving another 4 billion without access and their unclaimed attention up for grabs in the new economy.

10. Facebook, Apple, and Google combined control 70% of the world’s digital native attention. Facebook remains the largest consumption platform globally.

11. Attention is controlled through smartphones and other connected devices. Tangible levers such as land do not matter remotely as much as they once did, since attention is controlled through smartphones and other connected devices. Media and tech platforms are the new continents, as virtual land masses. The physical location of the tech platform is of no importance. For instance, Netflix recently launched in 130 countries, while Google and Facebook have user attention and consumption in over 200 countries.

12. Drivers of the attention economy include smartphones, internet connectivity, people, and, most importantly, curiosity.

13. All new wealth created in the new world revolves around attention. If a company has the attention of its consumers, they are valuable. Take a look at the number of attention-based service companies in the S&P100 by market cap.

14. In this decade, mobile is the platform to capture attention. However, even before the war for mobile platforms was concluded, a new battle for control of VR (virtual reality) outlets erupted. Facebook wants to build and own the VR platform of the world using Oculus, thereby capturing new attention that might get allocated over the next decade.

15. Attention is the new currency. You pay by giving your attention, i.e., spending time in many different ways on digital-only platforms like Facebook, Netflix, and YouTube. For example, 1.5 billion people pay 20 minutes of attention daily to the Facebook platform. Due to this, Facebook is valued at more than $300B.

16. Capturing and reselling attention has been the basic model for many modern businesses, from posters in late 19th-century Paris to the invention of mass-market newspapers that made their money not through circulation but through ad sales to the contemporary industries of advertising and ad-funded TV.

17. Attention-gathering tools are notifications, alerts, and search bars. The idea perpetuated is that spending attention on digital platforms can give consumers access to limitless knowledge and unlimited opportunity.

However, scattered attention equals lost focus, which results in decreased value. Therefore, the most crucial differentiator to create value in a new service, product, or company is what the consumer chooses to spend their attention and time on.

‘New-New World’ formula: More Attention = More Value = More Capital = More Power.

What makes this era’s lever so valuable is that you don’t have to be a monarch’s descendant or enter the realm of billionaire bankers to wield it, unlike land or capital. It is the most democratic force in the world, a true reflection of the vox populi — the voice of the people. Attention can be contrived through campaigning or marketing, or it can even bestow value through organic virality.

So, what do you think will be the next probable lever after attention? I am eager to hear your thoughts and comments.

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