For months I wonder why I pay for the New York Times. And then a piece like Charlie Warzel’ article about Michael Goldhaber comes along.
It is not unlikely that I have read Mr Goldhabers piece about the attention economy in 1997 already. I can not remember. And even though they could have the systems I would have used to do probably do not either.
Both linked texts are worth the read. Paying attention to.
Not everything that was uttered on the Internet of 1997 has aged as well as Mr Goldhaber’s essay. It is also very interesting to see where it was very lucid, and where it ended up being wrong. Hindsight is 2020. So judging it does not mean that I could have written anything as astute. Back then, and much less today. When Goldhab describes how media and attention will co develop he is utterly prescient. The moment he rolls the doe further on the table of possible we see gaps that back in the day seemed plausible:
it is not difficult to foresee a time when corporations will pretty much disappear
The motivation to outline these sentences here is not to critique or snark. I think it can be very informative to look closely where somebody who clearly grasped better what is going on than millions of other people still do go wrong.
One can not over emphasize how dynamics develop. If the world would have not changed, then Mr Goldfarb’s predictions probably had a better chance in coming true. It did change, and therefor most more defined prediction ended up lacking the foundation they were supposed to stand on.
In 2021 it feels almost strange to read a very informed text about attention with out the author even touching the topic of consciousness. I guess in the end of last century people had that topic in the Giftschrank. One could have easily been chastised as a Saganesc crystal clutching person for bringing up the C word in a serious context.