Subprime Attention Crisis by Tim Hwang

This was a slim little volume that I enjoyed a great deal. Hwang not only gives a basic overview of how intangible entities are commodified by our insane stock market system, but he talks about the technical details of how ads are generated on the fly. He also gives practical advice for disrupting this absurd system towards the end that I hope someone with more free time than me implements. As a great comment on Metafilter once said, the problem isn't platforms like Facebook/YouTube/etc. destroying "creativity," it's that advertising poisons everything it touches. (Got to track down this reference later.

p. 43:

Attention is commodified to an extent that it has not been in the past. There are many different ways of making money and the Internet could've commercialized—even through advertising—without developing the extreme level of modification that has occurred.