Comment by snowwrestler

Prediction markets are another way to monetize attention.

The typical notion of the “attention economy” is that you build your audience by getting attention—doesn’t much matter how—and then you get paid to advertise things to them. Could be white label retail like supplements or hats, or could be “content partnerships,” or just straight up ads a la “this episode brought to you by Squarespace.”

Prediction markets only make real money if there is attention. I can predict when my neighbor will take out their trash cans, but without attention, no one will take the counter or put up funds.

Conversely if something does have a lot of attention, then literally anything about it can be predicted, bet, funded, and fulfilled.

I can’t think of a way to stop this, any more easily than I can think of a way to stop people from getting paid to shit-post ragebait slop on YouTube, X, TikTok, etc.

Attention is the complement of free expression. If we let people say whatever they want, then people can also pay attention to whatever they want.