When people talk about the “attention economy,” they’re usually referring to the consumer’s limited attention, as when multiple apps compete for a user’s time. But a producer’s limited attention is just as important to consider. As audience engagement grows, more consumers appropriate attention from creators. So it’s critical to find ways to manage this demand, especially extractive demand, which includes comments, reactions, direct messages, and other requests for interaction. A tragedy of the commons occurs not from consumers over-appropriating the content itself, but from consumers
...more
