I have written a lot about my view of how Steemit is a reputation economy, then I wrote a bit about my view on Free Society and now I am focussing a bit more on the Attention Economy. But why am I writing and reading about these subjects. Well, first of all the community of Steemit inspired me to start reading and researching again. Thank you very much for that. I also enjoyed an article from @demotruk about 2 months ago titled Steemit and the Attention Economy I also liked your image so I used it in my post as well. Hope you do not mind @demotruk

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There is a however a deeper reason and idea behind reading and writing about all of this, As usual my disclaimer that I am not a specialist on any of this. I am just expressing my views on the subject, and hope to have some discussions in the Comments section.

What is the attention economy?

Attention economics is an approach to the management of information that treats human attention as a scarce commodity, and applies economic theory to solve various information management problems. Put simply by Matthew Crawford, "Attention is a resource—a person has only so much of it." In this perspective Thomas H.
Source WIkipedia

So what does this mean for us in on the internet and the future internet of value, which in my mind will be underpinned by blockchain technology and crypto currency or virtual currency for that matter.

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Social networks are basically the business model for attention economy

All of us logging onto Steemit, Facebook, Twitter or any social network are the eyeballs required and clicks which are required to turn all of this into a money making machine. I personally love it to be part of the engine that drives the new business of tomorrow. In the old days, it was all about getting feet through your shop door or past you shop window. Now it is all about writing the perfect algorithm to grab most people's attention. And unfortunately the most attention is attracted by the most extreme :)

Think about it, why is Kim Kardashian so famous? Because she is able to focus people's attention on her, by doing stupid things, or put in other words she is just being herself. I personally have never watched any of the television programmes, of her, but all of the Kardashian stuff is so in your face, that you cannot really miss it, can you?

I have read a very interesting article on Mark Manson's blog, where he worked through the various stages of human history, and can be summed up as follow.

The original scarcity in human history was land, hence having little productive land and there for a limited amount of food. Because there was limited amount of food, most of the economic concerns on a day to day basis was about food. As a result most people spend their time to figure out on which land they will be working, what they will be plating to harvest and how good the harvest, will be.

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Then there was the industrial revolution, and the scarcity changed from land* to labor as you needed trained people to manage all the new machines. Thus the focus of society changed to labor and the economic focus was also shifted into that direction.

More recently more things were produced than can be consumed by the human race, so we had a shift again, and this time it was the thirst for Knowledge. People did not know what to by with the money they earned and only recently the fields of marketing and advertising was born, and these industries are now actually running society.

So then the internet age came and there is now enough information available for all to consume, so what is the scarcity in today's life, well this is want the new economy is all about - ATTENTION

That is why Kim Kardashian is so famous and I have to quote Mark Manson here as he really made me laugh:

Kim Kardashian is a genius. Not an Einstein-like genius. Not a “solves differential equations in her head but can’t tie her shoes” genius. But she’s a genius. A savant. She’s like the Rainman of attention whoredom. The same way an autistic prodigy can count 2,318 toothpicks dumped on the floor just by looking at them, Kim Kardashian can command the attention of tens of millions of people with the crack of her ass

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Why am I focussing on the attention economy?

Well, many posts are flying around about the fact that STEEM and SBD is taking a nose dive on the markets. Again I am not a specialist in this field, but I am a very logical person. One thing that I do understand is that when you want to sell your SBD there must be somebody that wants to buy your SBD. It is all about supply and demand. It is each and everybody on this platforms duty, to assist in creating the demand for the currency.

We are still in the VERY, VERY early adopter stages of starting up a new Steem based economy. We need to find ways, to get people with FIAT currency to buy into Steem. Very important note here, STEEM not necessarily Steemit. I personally believe this will happen through time, when you speak to the appropriate investor about a real world idea, which will solve real world problems and as a result we will get FIAT into the STEEM platform. This is what will create the "Buying" power required to serve the selling demand.

Again my logic tells me that if you have more people that want to buy STEEM, than there is that want to sell STEEM, the price will skyrocket so high it will be ridiculous, or am I missing something here. Maybe one of the traders can confirm this for me.

One thing that I have learnt on the Steemit platform is that you should not write to long articles, as you will struggle to keep people's attention, :) pun intended.

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As I learn more about the Attention Economy, I will write a few more articles over the next few days.