Advertising-funded media sell attention, which is the only genuinely input.
Content is and getting cheaper; hours in a day are fixed.
Any system paid by the hour therefore for time spent rather than for value received.
Those two objectives overlap for a while and then separate.
The separation is visible in the design details: autoplay, infinite lists, rewards.
None of these is an accident and none requires bad intent from anyone involved.
They are simply what a selects when it is maximised for long enough.
Subscription models are held up as the alternative and change the incentive only partly.
A subscriber must be , which rewards satisfaction rather than raw hours.
It also concentrates the audience among those who can pay a monthly fee.
What follows is a two-tier information environment, which has its own political consequences.
Regulation has focused on the worst cases: children, gambling and health misinformation.
Structural remedies are rarer, since they require defining a harm that is and cumulative.
The most promising interventions change defaults rather than content.
Turning autoplay off by default costs a platform measurable revenue, which is the clearest evidence that it works.