[dj_gitmo]

> what is definitely not inevitable is the monetization of human attention. It's only a matter of policy. Without it the incentives to make Tiktok would have been greatly reduced, if even economically possible at all.

This is not a new thing. TV monetizes human attention. Tiktok is just an evolution of TV. And Tiktok comes from China which has a very different society. If short-form algo slop video can thrive in both liberal democracies and a heavily censored society like China, than it's probably somewhat inevitable.

[simgt]

Radio broadcasting and newspapers monetized it even before TV. China is hyper-capitalist too, what is restricted is mainly political speech so that doesn't make much difference. If anything the EU is probably where advertisement is the most regulated. We can easily envision having way more constrains on advertisement and influencing, that would reduce drastically the value of human attention. Not sure many would get in the streets to protest against that.

[danaris]

The monetization of attention was a side effect of TV, not the primary purpose.

TikTok and other current efforts have that monetization as their primary purpose.

The profit-first-everything-else-never approach typical in late-stage capitalism was not inevitable. It is very possible to see the specific turns that led us to this point, and they did not have to happen.

[cogogo]

Radio was already well monetized before TV came along. How was monetization a side-effect?