Attention is a luxury good

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

What “attention as a luxury good” means (and whether it fits)

  • Several see the post as ultimately about self‑worth and intentional use of time, but some suspect it veers into self‑justification or status signaling.
  • Multiple commenters argue “luxury” is the wrong economic term; this is closer to conspicuous consumption, Veblen goods, or simply finite time allocation.
  • Others like the metaphor: attention as a scarce, formerly abundant resource now over‑exploited like land or fish stocks.

Attention vs addiction, desperation, and exploitation

  • Strong pushback on calling attention a luxury: addictive behaviors (doomscrolling, gambling, TikTok, etc.) are framed as desperation and exploitation, not “luxury.”
  • Counter‑argument: by a basic definition (“non‑essential but pleasurable”), many addictions are to luxuries; you don’t get addicted to water, but to sweets, YouTube, or cars.
  • Disagreement over whether attention problems stem from shorter attention spans or simply more competing, optimized stimuli.

Enshittification and the attention economy

  • Many examples of products becoming hostile to users: YouTube’s UI, autoplay and recommendations; phones and galleries with ads; consoles and OSes with built‑in feeds; smart treadmills that require subscriptions.
  • Consensus that many products now treat users as “attention to be mined,” not customers.
  • Strong anti‑advertising sentiment; debates over ethics of ad‑blocking vs “who pays for content,” with some arguing ad blockers mostly hurt platforms, not small creators.

Strategies to protect attention

  • Heavy use of ad blockers (uBlock Origin, SponsorBlock, Unhook), alternative clients (Freetube), Linux phones, disabling notifications, and using subscription feeds/bookmarks instead of homepages.
  • Some prefer paying (e.g., YouTube Premium) but others refuse to give money to large ad‑driven corporations on principle.
  • AI chat interfaces are praised for currently offering focused, ad‑free answers, though many expect “enshittification” here too.

Attention, culture, empathy, and morality

  • Several extend the idea: reading whole books, attending concerts, or eating in proper restaurants are “attention‑luxury goods” compared to quick summaries, TikTok, or takeout.
  • Disagreement over whether empathy and culture are “luxury goods” or foundational to a functioning society.
  • A few argue attention is not just economic but moral: what we attend to shapes reality, values, and even spiritual health.