You make a reasonable point. I think, though, that there is difference, which is the degree to which ‘the customer is the product’ for these platforms, and that’s a key ingredient in Doctorow’s original post:
Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.
Sure, advertising is nothing new, but the degree to which these platforms can target content and ads to the individual is qualitatively different to ‘old media’. Emphasis on ‘the customer’, singular, being the product, not ‘the readers/viewers’ as a whole.
Gorgritch_umie_killa@aussie.zone 1 month ago
I’s talking about products in general, not new v old media. I actually had Jack Welch of GE in my mind when i wrote the comment yesterday.
That doctorow was a longer read than i’s expecting, clicked on a lot of links as well. This is why its taken soblong for me to reply :p I really liked the part about ‘heating’.
The heating part made me think about how youtube rarely showed me videos from channels i’d liked previously, i had to go looking for them, while the recommended videos showed so much weird crap.
I still think its no different to the ‘ever lasting search for the latest eFficiEnCeeeeee saving’ every MBA learns by rote.
But i take your point, User Attention is what these companies are selling. Like good little MBA’s they are doing everything they can to exploit that value from the user attention assets they have, and are singularly failing to build any new assets of any value.