exploring the inner workings and dynamics of companies building products engineered to hook us, addict us, and hijack our attention to sell more ad inventory
Business model shapes outcomes. In a subscription based model, you build tools people use and pay for. In an ad-based model, you build engagement hacks.
As Tristan Harris put it:
“we've moved away from having a tools-based technology environment to an addiction and manipulation based technol... See more
How we allocate our attention defines us even more than our purchases do. People have different amounts of money, so the things we buy don’t reflect values in the same way for everyone. The same purchase might represent a tremendous sacrifice for one person and a mere afterthought to another. But we all have the same widow’s mite of attention to distribute among the many things competing for it: family, friends, education, health, careers, church, politics, great books, lousy books, clickbait headlines, and viral posts about ridiculous people doing ridiculous things for no particular reason. Our limited attention budget forces us to make choices, and those choices both reveal our values and create our characters.
Li Jin on The Passion Economy & Its Hidden Currency
“Specificially, pursuit of novelty creates “luck”, and curiosity is the emotional manifestation of novelty. If we’re more open to what attracts our attention, we’ll get a lot luckier.”