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COMPUTERS, COMMUNICATIONS,AND THE PUBLIC INTERESTDesigningOrganizations for anInformation-RichWorldHERBERT A. SIMONJOHNS HOPKINS PRESS, 1971
Stated:
1971, Herbert A. Simon, Carnegie Mellon University
Popularized:
1997, Michael Goldhaber
Premise:
Information is abundant. Attention is scarce.

The attention economy is the market that forms when information is abundant and attention is scarce. Herbert Simon stated the premise in 1971. Information consumes the attention of its recipients, so a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention. A person has twenty-four hours a day. Every publisher, app and advertiser bids for the same ones.

The business model is older than the name. In 1833 the New York Sun sold for one cent and earned its income from advertisers, who paid to reach its readers. Radio, television and the feed repeated the trade. The product is free because the audience is what gets sold. The price is paid in hours.

What information consumes is ratherobvious: it consumes the attention ofits recipients. Hence a wealth ofinformation creates a poverty ofattention and a need to allocate thatattention efficiently among theoverabundance of information sourcesthat might consume it.HERBERT A. SIMON, 1971PP. 40 TO 41

A Poverty of Attention (1971)

Simon trained as a political scientist and won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1978. He wrote the sentence for a lecture on how organizations handle information. It describes the fifty years of media that followed.

The Penny Press (1833)

Benjamin Day priced the New York Sun at one cent when other papers cost six. Within two years it claimed the largest circulation of any daily. The income came from advertisers, who were buying access to the readers.

THE SUN.NEW YORK, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1833.NUMBER 1.PRICE ONE PENNY.ADVERTISEHERE
FIG. 3 SUPPLYINFORMATIONATTENTION: 24 H A DAYTIMETHE GAP IS THE MARKET

The New Currency (1997)

Michael Goldhaber argued in First Monday that the internet runs on attention and that money follows it. Information can be copied without limit. Attention cannot be copied or stored, and each person’s supply is fixed.

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