“I like the algorithm”
-– The average consumer

This is a common phrase in the year 2026.

The attention economy has become incredibly efficient; digital real estate sold out to the extent that we, as a society, can only remember our attention with nostalgia.

It's efficient to the point where it's as if we're responsible for discovering new content just to keep the machine going.  Whether we want it or not.

Media Mercantilism

We, as consumers, have become inventory. The product. And our engagement? The most important metric.

Time on platform is what media companies optimize for — the number that decides what gets made, what gets promoted, and what gets buried.

Adam Smith saw it coming.

“Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer. The maxim is so perfectly self-evident, that it would be absurd to attempt to prove it.” -– The Wealth of Nations, Book IV, Ch. 8

To rephrase Smith's follow-up point:

In the media mercantile system, the interest of the consumer is almost constantly sacrificed to that of the producer; and it seems to consider engagement, and not consumption, as the ultimate end and object of all media.

Smith's merchants mistook the store of gold for wealth. The attention economy mistakes time on platform for value.

The attention economy is media mercantilism.

The Wealth of Podcasts

In reality, the wealth of podcasts comes from consumer enrichment.

A listener's realized benefit is subjective to them, but it certainly is not engagement. We've learned to distrust the social media feed — so why do we give podcast apps a pass? Attention is attention.

The only true value comes when we, as consumers, get something from what we consume. Value is realized in the consumer, not conferred by the producer — and realization needs reflection, which infinite engagement is designed to prevent. In an endless loop, no time remains to reflect. It isn't just all-consuming. It is deeply antithetical to value.

So we do not produce value for the producer. We are not brains to be mined, nor eyes to be used.

That doesn't mean a producer deserves nothing in return. They do. But the production chain of the attention economy is cannibalistic: producers are consumers too — how could they not be? — and the same machine that mines us mines them. It eats the very people it depends on.

Which is why the “support” the attention economy sends a producer is counterfeit. Attention feels like support. It inflates the number. But it is nothing like choosing to give something back for what we were given. Real support is direct.

In the same way Smith refused to let a producer's interest in protection override the consumer's benefit, we ought to refuse to let a producer's interest in attention override ours.

Where does that refusal begin?

Producer

How we name the people who make our media — and how we're invited to relate to them — starts to matter. Now, more than ever.

They are not “creators.“  “Creator” elevates the supply side to a personality; a brand; a mythical figure owed some amount of loyalty.  It's at the center of a parasocial relationship.  Something to engage with.

Words matter, and we ought to speak with intention.  Podcasts are produced.  Those that produce are producers.  No need to sensationalize further.

I'm not merely arguing semantics (it wouldn't be the first time).  The only way out of the attention economy is to re-evaluate our digital interactions in the first place.  I'm re-evaluating my relationship with producers.  Not because I don't value their work, rather because my reflection upon their work matters more than my attention toward them.

My reflections brought me where I am today.  It turns out, I have a lot of value to bring to the world.  I have many people to thank for that, all of us, voices in the same global village.

That is the Wealth of Podcasts.

Intent

I've suffered as much as anyone from the attention economy.  Working from home well before it was the norm, alone and isolated.  Media has been there for me from the start — infinite in supply.  I have been a product for many.

I've had many parasocial relationships.  Some offered predatory, one-way companionship, so long as I engaged.  Others provided genuine value to me.  They know who they are, and I continue to return value to them within my means.

We've always sought ways of resisting and opting out.  From various privacy tools to all manner of self-control.  They have their place.  Some too extreme, some not enough.  But these tools are reactive, seeking to solve the symptom.  Not the problem.

Now, I choose to approach my media consumption with intent. Could I go without it? Sure. But, to pretend that these products are valueless is not productive.

I'm not only a consumer. I'm a producer, too — and the machine never cared which side I was on. It mined me either way.

Consuming with intent is only half of it.

Medio

Software should be built on the same inversion Adam Smith made for economics — “Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production” — and almost none of it is, because the dominant business model requires treating attention as the product, and the consumer as the good being sold.

I've made a choice to reclaim my attention — that goes for the software I choose to produce.  Starting with my own podcast app.

Medio doesn't reject the algorithm.  It simply doesn't acknowledge it.

Discuss...

#podcasting20 #medio #commentary #philosophy