Strip everything away and it comes down to this. Advertisers need eyeballs. Yes, we protect people. Yes, we add value to their day. But, it is all spelled out in The Attention Merchants, we aggregate a large audience and sell access to it.
We wandered off into Facebook because they aggregated a larger audience and now they control the access.
This is a really interesting article. And here is one of the money quotes. Glance at the quote then read the article. It is not very long, I have a minute. (Tapping foot…)
Users want access to us. They want to ask questions and they enjoy it when we share part of our lives. It looks like a Danish TV station is going to take a step forward in taking back control.
We get control. We get the eyeballs. We monetize the audience. The longer we wait the harder it becomes.