Business · 22 April 2026 · 10 min read
The Economics of Attention
Every feed is a marketplace. Most of us are the product, a few of us are the merchants — almost none of us are the regulators.
By Tariro Maposa
Attention is the only currency that cannot be printed. Which is exactly why everyone is trying to print it.
The three players
- The audience — generates the supply.
- The platform — clears the market.
- The advertiser — sets the price.
Notice who is not on this list: the regulator, the artist, the journalist. The market is functional. It is just functioning for someone else.
If you are not paying for it, and you are not selling it, you are it.
What a healthier market looks like
Three quiet shifts to watch in the next 24 months:
- Default-private feeds, opt-in algorithmic ones.
- Per-creator paywalls that work across platforms.
- Time-spent caps as a UX feature, not a punishment.
None of these are radical. All of them are profitable. Most of them are coming.
Filed under
Business →
