The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource

by Chris Hayes

But the biggest problem is one of Google’s own making. If I search, as I recently did, for a “three row ev”—that is, an electric vehicle with three rows—the first FOUR responses are all paid-for ads by various car companies that would like to sell me a three-row electric vehicle. Except the first hit is a Subaru Solterra model that doesn’t actually have three rows. And then the next hit is a Nissan Ariya model for an electric vehicle that…also doesn’t have three rows! The third advertisement is, finally, for an Infiniti QX80, which does indeed have three rows but is…not electric. Then another ad for Polestar, a new EV start-up that doesn’t offer a three-row car. After scrolling down a bit past the first four results displayed, I get to an actual nonsponsored link from an actual publication: “Here’s every three row EV you can buy, now and soon.”[31] Finally, the information I was looking for.