#9: The Economics the New Internet

Now that we have discussed the technical aspects of the new internet, let’s explore its economics. This is a defining characteristic of the new internet, as compared to current internet protocols, which do not have money natively built in.

Any economic model is based on the concept of scarce resources. Before the current internet, content distribution was scarce because of the high costs associated with broadcasting.

The current internet was built with the noble intention of removing these distribution costs, and platforms like Twitter achieved this by enabling free broadcasting. However, in this system, the new scarce resources became software developers and content creators. These skills were difficult to acquire, so Big Tech companies became the largest recruiters of top software developers and sought out creators who could capture attention.

But today, the landscape is shifting. AI is making it easier to write code and generate infinite amounts of content from simple prompts. As a result, software developers and attention-grabbing content creators are losing their scarcity.

Currently, the scarce resource is GPUs, which explains why Nvidia briefly became the most valuable company in the world. However, that’s a technical constraint, and trillions of dollars are being invested to remove this bottleneck. But even when these technical constraints are addressed, two new scarce resources remain: attention and creativity.

With the flood of information and media generated by AI, human attention has become a fundamental constraint. We are running out of attention to consume all this content, and users are increasingly valuing their attention, as seen on platforms like Substack, where people are willing to pay to reclaim it. Capturing attention is becoming more challenging than ever.

The second scarce resource in the age of AI is human creativity. AI can remix existing knowledge and ideas but cannot create entirely new concepts. Human creativity, which requires focused attention, is becoming increasingly valuable.

Roles in the New Internet Economy

In response to these new scarce resources—attention and creativity—the new internet will be shaped by two primary roles: Creators and Curators.

Creators are individuals who come up with fundamentally new insights or contribute to collective human knowledge, not as those who simply remix existing content. While AI will excel at remixing, true creators will become more valuable in the new internet because they will be able to claim ownership of their ideas. The new internet will provide clear trails of "who said what," establishing property rights for creators.

Curators are a new role in the new internet, made possible by the open global content database. With this database, curators can filter content in a way that provides consistent, coherent, and meaningful information to users. Curators will use strategies ranging from human review to AI filtering, as well as partnerships with creators, to deliver curated content that saves users time and attention.

Curators will become highly rewarded in the new internet economy, as their ability to deliver clear, high-quality information will be in high demand. Their business models may range from direct payments for curation to offering free content while selling related products (e.g., a curated feed of fitness content upselling fitness products).

The Attention Economy

The economy of the new internet is fundamentally an attention economy. Readers will pay curators to save their attention by providing high-quality information, and when readers use their attention to create new knowledge, curators will pay them for access to that knowledge.

The basic economic loop is visualized below:

While this is a simplified view of the new internet economy, it’s easy to imagine more nuanced flows, such as direct relationships between consumers and creators that bypass curators, or curators paying consumers to recruit more users. Creators may even pay curators for marketing their work.

Nevertheless, the economy remains based on attention: users pay to regain their attention, while businesses pay to capture it.

Now that we’ve discussed the economics of the new internet, in the last essay we’ll discuss the financial and business opportunities that this new internet opens up for the world.