Attention Auctions
Sam Lessin, writing in his weekly email newsletter (2026-09-12 edition):
Seth, Dani, and I were front row for the [US Open] women's semis .. which was fun because according to a bunch of people we were on TV a lot … so what is the AI business? Well... when you buy tickets you should be able to validate your place in the stadium and how you will show up on TV… people should then BID for you to wear their advertising hat / shirt, etc. (which scales really nicely, because if EVERYONE is wearing the same shirt, it is pretty noticeable — and bonus points if you are attractive / submit a selfie)… then have AI watch the whole game, validate you wore the ad, and pay out on the screen time you got… This is a real business idea and it is 100% an AI one, because all that validation and processing of seat position, on screen time, market making, etc. for quick ads is too inefficient without the bots! That is what all those trillion dollar data centers is for!
This isn't as flippant as it first sounds. Outbid.lol ranks products by how much they pay. Top spot on the leaderboard? $18k to the creator. Since launching on 19 August, it claims 1.3m visitors, $260k in revenue and nearly 3,000 listings.
Brand My Mac is a French guy auctioning logo space on his MacBook. Vlogs, cafés, build-in-public, events: "get your brand seen online and IRL". He's raised over $9k so far, and the auction's still live.
Lessin's idea is a wonky mashup of leaderboard auctions and clipping.
The best seat in the house becomes ad inventory.