Introduction

“a design representation suitable to a world in which the scarce factor is information may be exactly the wrong one for a world in which the scarce factor is attention” - The Sciences Of The Artificial, Herbert Simon

This paper outlines a possible economic model for the blockchain-based web, based on the principles of the attention economy. We argue that human attention is quickly becoming the most valuable resource and the main scarcity of the Internet.

Human attention, understood as an economic resource, has different properties than previous scarcities of land and capital/labour. While information grows exponentially, our own neurology imposes biological limits to the amount of inputs we can pay attention to.

Furthermore, as our brains evolved in conditions of information scarcity, we are not suited to efficiently allocate our attention in the condition of permanent information overload.

Our key observation is that competition for attention is the key ‘invisible’ exponential trend of our times that requires reinventing the existing advertising based business models of the Internet.

The solution we propose is based on 'uberization' of content filtering, ranking and curation. The current web platforms are based on bundling user data, ranking algorithms and interfaces. Their business model is based on extracting attention from users and converting it into capital returns for their shareholders.

We advocate for a new model, which we call - the web 3.0. The blockchain-based open data platform where content curation and ranking is decentralised.

Users own their data and become stakeholders in the system. The marketplace of moderators and marketplaces compete for users attention by providing them the best 'view' on their data.