Attention Poverty
In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.
That was 1971.
Now give everyone their own game studio.
Dylan Collins on the generational shift from game developers to game creators:
Even with the ability to create any game possible, monetizing requires putting it in front of people. [...] Exponential rates of content creation (and attention competition) means it is becoming ever-harder (and close to impossible) to break through that level of noise [...]The long tail will stretch to infinity, mostly with personalised games built for people's individual taste. The occasional break-out will be huge but the net effect is an expansion from thousands of creators to millions.
[...]
With infinite places to invest your attention, it's going to be harder for brands, creators and publishers to capture signal.
Collins reads it from the maker's side. Distribution, noise, how anyone breaks through.
Simon puts the poverty somewhere else. With the audience on the receiving end.
The scarce thing is not output. It never is.
Millions of makers. Still only so many hours in a week.