I believe we’re all struggling with the downstream effects of the attention economy that’s fed by leveraged debt. Online, the most money being made is by peopl

I believe we’re all struggling with the downstream effects of the attention economy that’s fed by leveraged debt. Online, the most money being made is by people who get attention. The making is not just secondary, in many cases it’s a calculation. Even genres that I enjoy as a maker for having real tactile value (repair, restoration, rug cleaning, etc) are inherently not profitable unless they are getting paid out by the video platforms. For artists this has created a wild set of conflicting constraints. Some can do the Patreon model but for those who don’t, they need attention in order to sell art in order to generate enough money to make art. In this world, AI lowering the barrier to entry means that we’re close to (if not already there) “artists” (aka people farming for money) soaking up all the attention and leaving none for the people who make things. It’s not that all artists will use AI to pretend to make stuff, it’s that all the pieces are there for a world where these money farmers will be the only visible type of artist.