From FSGO x Logic: a revealing examination of digital advertising
and the internet's precarious foundation
In Subprime Attention Crisis, Tim Hwang investigates the way big tech
financializes attention. In the process, he shows us how digital
advertising--the beating heart of the internet--is at risk of
collapsing, and that its potential demise bears an uncanny resemblance
to the housing crisis of 2008.
From the unreliability of advertising numbers and the unregulated
automation of advertising bidding wars, to the simple fact that online
ads mostly fail to work, Hwang demonstrates that while consumers'
attention has never been more prized, the true value of that attention
itself--much like subprime mortgages--is wildly misrepresented. And if
online advertising goes belly-up, the internet--and its free
services--will suddenly be accessible only to those who can afford it.
Deeply researched, convincing, and alarming, Subprime Attention Crisis
will change the way you look at the internet, and its precarious future.
FSG Originals × Logic dissects the way technology functions in
everyday lives. The titans of Silicon Valley, for all their utopian
imaginings, never really had our best interests at heart: recent threats
to democracy, truth, privacy, and safety, as a result of tech's reckless
pursuit of progress, have shown as much. We present an alternate story,
one that delights in capturing technology in all its contradictions and
innovation, across borders and socioeconomic divisions, from history
through the future, beyond platitudes and PR hype, and past doom and
gloom. Our collaboration features four brief but provocative forays into
the tech industry's many worlds, and aspires to incite fresh
conversations about technology focused on nuanced and accessible
explorations of the emerging tools that reorganize and redefine life
today.
