a16z Podcast: The Truth about 1000 True Fans + Pricing Our Attention | Andreessen Horowitz

Kevin’s idea for reversing the attention economy: What if companies paid audiences directly for their attention?

Another idea: What if anybody could run an ad and receive payments once people clicked on/watched it?

(Most people probably won’t finish the book, enabling the author to profit)

Kevin’s ‘1,000 True Fans’ theory: In a world where you have direct audience contact, you only need 1,000 people paying you $100/year to make an honest living

Kevin’s idea for reinventing the book industry: An author writes an ebook and sells it or $X. Then, the author pays readers who end up finishing the book $(X+1).

Doing some calculations examining the total amount of attention given to different forms of media, Kevin discovered that, on average, people surrender their attention for just $3/hour!

Ponder this: “If it’s true that attention is the only scarcity we have in this world of abundance, how come you and I are giving our attention away for free?” – Kevin Kelly