Hacking The Attention Economy
Friends: in addition to the 17% discount for becoming annual paid members, we are excited to announce an additional 10% discount when paying with Bitcoin. Reach out to me, these discounts stack on top of each other!
A rising number of people are leaving 6-figure careers to go into digital assets: creating them, trading them, build on top of them and more.
The digital world glitters with cash flow and big opportunity.
Apps represent a new frontier of entrepreneurship: incredible cash-flowing properties characterized by remarkably low operating costs and breathtaking scalability. Imagine building a software tool, a mobile game, or a content platform once, and then reaching millions, generating revenue with minimal incremental cost for each new user.
Compared to the brick-and-mortar world's limitations of physical space, inventory, and localized markets, the digital economy seems boundless, a potential gold rush for the 21st century.
I wrote an entire article on the digital gold rush, and why we are lucky to be alive at the apex of creation and distribution:
The Digital Gold Rush: Why Building Assets Now is Key
The world around us is undergoing a transformation unlike anything we've witnessed before.
It’s a good article (if I do say so myself) but the alluring vision inside it paints only half the picture.
While the potential for low-cost, high-scale digital businesses is undeniable, realizing that potential hinges on conquering a fundamental challenge: the intense, relentless competition for a finite resource: human attention.
In the digital age, an app, a website, or any piece of online content, no matter how brilliantly conceived or elegantly designed, is only as valuable as the attention it can successfully capture and retain.
Welcome to the Attention Economy
The Currency of Consciousness
Coined by psychologist, economist, and Nobel laureate Herbert A. Simon in the early 1970s, the concept of the Attention Economy posits that in an information-rich world, the wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.
Simon astutely observed,"What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it."
Decades later, Simon's insight is more relevant than ever.
We are bombarded.
Smartphones buzz with notifications, social media feeds endlessly scroll, streaming services offer infinite entertainment choices, news outlets compete for clicks, and advertisers vie for microseconds of our gaze. Our cognitive capacity, our time, and our focus are finite resources. This scarcity transforms attention into a valuable commodity, arguably the most critical currency in the digital marketplace.
Businesses, creators, and platforms are no longer just competing based on the quality of their product or service; they are locked in a fierce battle for moments of our conscious awareness. Success is measured not just in dollars, but in minutes spent, pages viewed, videos watched, notifications opened, and active users engaged. A digital asset, like the web app with paid features mentioned in the premise, might have near-zero marginal cost to serve an additional user, but the cost of acquiring and keeping that user's attention can be substantial, involving marketing spend, content creation, sophisticated design, and continuous innovation.
Let's revisit the promise of digital assets and ground it in the reality of the Attention Economy:
Low Operating Costs: This remains largely true after initial development and user acquisition. Hosting, basic maintenance, and automated systems can indeed be inexpensive compared to physical infrastructure, rent, and large employee overheads. However, the ongoing cost of staying relevant and retaining attention (content updates, feature additions, marketing, community management) can be significant. An app left dormant quickly fades from user consciousness.
High Scalability: Digital assets can theoretically reach a global audience with minimal friction. Adding the 10,000th user often costs negligibly more than adding the 10th. This leverage is powerful. But scalability is meaningless without demand, and demand is driven by attention. Scaling requires capturing attention at scale, which often involves escalating marketing costs or achieving viral growth – itself a function of capturing mass attention quickly.
Cash Flow Potential: Subscription models (SaaS, premium content), in-app purchases, advertising revenue, and affiliate marketing can create robust, often recurring, revenue streams. However, this cash flow is directly proportional to sustained user engagement. If users stop paying attention – if they uninstall the app, stop visiting the website, or ignore the content – the cash flow dries up.
The central challenge for any digital asset creator or owner is not merely building something functional or even valuable in the abstract. It's building something that can consistently win the battle for attention against countless alternatives. How is this achieved? Enter gamification.
Gamification: The Secret Weapon in the Attention Arsenal
If attention is the currency, then strategies are needed to earn and retain it. Among the most potent and pervasive of these strategies is gamification.
Gamification is the application of game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts.
It's not necessarily about building a full-fledged game, but rather about integrating mechanics commonly found in games – points, badges, leaderboards, challenges, progress bars, rewards – into applications, websites, and services to drive user engagement, motivation, and loyalty.
Why is gamification so effective at capturing and holding attention? Because it taps directly into fundamental aspects of human psychology:
Games excel at motivating players through clear goals and rewarding progress. Points systems, badges for achievements, and unlocking new levels or features provide tangible feedback and a sense of accomplishment. This triggers dopamine releases in the brain, creating positive reinforcement loops that encourage users to return and continue interacting. Think of fitness apps awarding badges for workout streaks or language learning apps like Duolingo using points and "lingots" for completed lessons.
Games provide constant, immediate feedback. Did you succeed? Did you fail? How close are you to the next goal? Gamified systems replicate this. Progress bars (like the profile completion bar on LinkedIn) show users how far they've come and how close they are to completion, leveraging the Zeigarnik effect (our tendency to remember uncompleted tasks better than completed ones) to encourage finishing the task. Notifications about new challenges or rewards keep the app top-of-mind.
Leaderboards, team challenges, and social sharing features tap into our innate desire for social standing and competition.
Seeing how you rank against friends or other users can be a powerful motivator to spend more time and effort within the app. Strava, the fitness tracking app, thrives on segments and leaderboards where users compete for the best times on specific routes.
Breaking down large tasks into smaller, manageable steps or levels allows users to feel a continuous sense of progress and growing mastery. This is crucial for retention, especially in educational or productivity apps where the ultimate goal might seem distant. Learning platforms often use modular structures and visual progress indicators.
"Mystery boxes" limited-time challenges, or unlockable content pique curiosity and leverage the principle of scarcity. The fear of missing out (the vaunted FOMO) can drive users to engage more frequently or complete specific actions. Daily login bonuses are a classic example, encouraging habitual use.
Techniques like streaks (maintaining a continuous daily activity) are explicitly designed to build habits. Duolingo's streak feature is legendary for motivating daily language practice. By making interaction rewarding and tracking consistency, gamification helps embed app usage into a user's routine, securing ongoing attention.
Inspired by the powerful psychological pull of slot machines, some gamification employs variable reinforcement schedules. Instead of a predictable reward every time, the user might receive rewards of varying value at unpredictable intervals. This can be highly engaging, even addictive, keeping users coming back in anticipation of the next potential reward. Social media "likes" and notifications often function on this principle.
Implementing Gamification Effectively
Simply slapping points and badges onto an app isn't a guaranteed recipe for success. Effective gamification requires careful consideration:
Alignment with Core Value: Gamification should enhance, not distract from, the app's primary purpose. If the core function isn't valuable or user-friendly, no amount of gamification will save it long-term. Gamification should motivate users towards actions that align with the app's goals and provide genuine value to the user.
Understanding User Motivation: Different users respond to different mechanics. Some are driven by competition, others by collaboration, achievement, or exploration. Tailoring gamification elements to the target audience is key.
Balance and Avoiding Over-Complexity: Too many game mechanics can be confusing or overwhelming. The system should feel intuitive and integrated, not tacked on.
Maintaining Interest: Gamification elements need to evolve. Initial rewards might lose their appeal over time. Introducing new challenges, levels, or rewards keeps the experience fresh and maintains long-term engagement.
Thriving in the Age of Distraction
The initial premise holds true: digital assets like apps can be incredible cash-flowing properties with low operating costs and high scalability. However, this potential is unlocked only by navigating the fierce currents of the Attention Economy. Attention is the gatekeeper to user engagement, monetization, and ultimately, the success of any digital venture.
In this environment, competition is not just about features or pricing; it's a fundamental battle for fractions of human consciousness.
Strategies designed to capture and hold that consciousness are paramount. Gamification stands out as a particularly potent "secret weapon," leveraging deep-seated psychological drivers to foster motivation, habit formation, and sustained engagement. By incorporating elements like points, badges, leaderboards, challenges, and progress indicators, developers can significantly increase the "stickiness" of their applications, turning fleeting glances into habitual interaction.
Ultimately, building a thriving digital asset in the Attention Economy means understanding that you are not just selling software or content; you are competing for the most precious resource of the modern age. Success requires not only technological prowess but also a deep understanding of human psychology and a commitment to providing genuine value worthy of that finite, invaluable currency: attention.
Gamification Elements in an AI Life Copilot App
Gamification was top of mind as I was designing Orion the AI Life Copilot. Points, levels, achievements and other gamified elements are layered all throughout the experience. Let’s review the different elements gamified inside Orion.
Points System
The application implements a comprehensive points system with the following features:
Points Accumulation: Users earn points through completing tasks (3 points each), habits (10-15 points based on streak), and journal entries.
Weekly & Total Points: Points are tracked both weekly and as an all-time total, displayed prominently in the Gamification Bar.
Points Analytics: The PointsAnalytics component provides visual feedback comparing current week/month points to previous periods, with percentage changes and visual indicators.
Weekly Points Reset: Every week, points are automatically reset and stored in a weekly_points_history table to maintain weekly competition while preserving historical data.
People love to get immediate rewards. While the benefit from completing a task or sticking with your habits isn’t immediate, the points you receive hit the account right away.
That drives engagement. Let’s expand on that now…
Experience & Leveling System
What’s the point of those points?
To level-up!
Character Progression: Users gain experience points that contribute to level progression.
Level Calculation: Uses a progressive calculation where each level requires more XP than the previous one, calculated using the formula: level = FLOOR(SQRT(exp::float/100)) + 1.
Visual Progress: Progress toward the next level is displayed as a percentage in the CharacterStats component.
Life Area Mastery: Users can gain levels in specific life areas (Body, Mind, Spirit, Career, Wealth, Relationships) based on their activity in each area.
By making it easier to level up at the start, and then progressively more difficult, users become focused on leveling up… and in the case of Orion, that also means you are leveling up in real life. Because your habits and tasks are being completed on the road to achieving your goals.
Achievements
The feel of real progress is the key to keeping them in the game.
To that end, Orion features an extensive achievement system with multiple categories:
Perfect Day Achievements: 8 different achievement tiers from completing 1 perfect day up to 365 perfect days.
Habit Achievements: Recognizes consistent habit completion and streaks.
Task Achievements: Rewards completing various numbers of tasks (5, 100, etc.).
Journaling Achievements: Rewards consistent journaling.
Points Milestones: Achievements for reaching point thresholds.
Login Streaks: Rewards consistent app usage with achievements at 7 days and 30 days.
Achievement Display: A dedicated achievement sheet in the GamificationBar shows all achievements with progress bars and visual indicators.
Achievement Points: Each achievement awards additional points (20-500 points depending on difficulty).
I wanted some to be rewarded right away, and I wanted others to take a year of perfection to attain. The spectrum keeps interest high. You need to design your achievements to reward the user behaviors you are looking for, e.g. consistent logins, using all the features, etc…
Streaks
The best way to win back a customer is never let them leave. Rewarding streaks is a great way to make a habit out of using the app itself.
Login Streaks: Tracks consecutive days of app usage.
Habit Streaks: Each habit maintains its own streak counter, with higher streaks yielding more points.
Streak Rewards: Habit points scale with streak length (10 points for streaks up to 10 days, 12 points for 11-20 days, 15 points for 20+ days).
Visual Streak Indicators: The current streak is displayed in the GamificationBar.
Perfect Day System
Came up with this myself with no AI help at all, an increasingly rare feat for me!
The “heart” of Orion is goal achievement. To do that, you need to use all your tools in the app: journal, tasks, habits… so I created a special incentive whenever a user uses those 3 features in the same day!
Perfect Day Concept: A "perfect day" is achieved when a user completes at least one habit, one task, and one journal entry in a single day.
Progress Tracking: The PerfectDayProgress component shows real-time progress toward completing a perfect day.
Perfect Day Counter: Perfect days are counted and tied to achievements.
Automatic Detection: The system automatically detects when conditions for a perfect day are met and awards it immediately.
Journaling sets your plan and gives you a chance to reconcile plan vs outcome. Layering this atop the habit and task tracking, and then exposing all that to AI gives users incredible guidance and feedback as they climb their chosen hills.
Social Features
The social features let friends, colleagues and competitors show each other where they stand. Sometimes, it feels good to see yourself at the top of the leaderboard.
Leaderboard: A weekly leaderboard shows the top users based on weekly points, encouraging healthy competition.
Real-time Updates: The leaderboard subscribes to profile changes to update in real-time when users earn points.
Sharing: Users can share their achievements, character stats, and progress through social media.
Ok, every time it feels good to see yourself at the top of the leaderboard.
Visual Feedback & Statistics
Points and achievements aren’t enough. The reward needs to be visualized and enticing.
Completion Trends: Visual charts showing habits, tasks, and journal entries over time.
Life Area Progress: Visual representation of progress in different life areas.
Points Analytics: Charts comparing current and previous periods.
Progress Bars: Used throughout the app to show progress toward achievements, perfect days, and level advancement.
Stat Cards: Stats are displayed in visually appealing cards with color-coding and icons.
RPG Character Elements
My favorite part: it’s like playing a video game but leveling up in real life.
Character Stats: A character sheet style display showing overall level and life area mastery.
Multiple Stats: Each life area has dedicated stats with their own progression rules.
Visual Character Development: Progress is represented visually similar to an RPG character sheet.
Overall, Orion implements a comprehensive, multi-layered gamification system that rewards consistency, encourages habit formation, and provides numerous paths for users to feel a sense of progress and achievement. I did all this to not just win attention but keep it.
Gamification is a major weapon, but it's not the only one. Success in the Attention Economy also relies on:
Exceptional User Experience (UX): An intuitive, frictionless, and aesthetically pleasing interface is table stakes. If an app is difficult or frustrating to use, users will quickly abandon it, regardless of other features.
Compelling Core Value Proposition: The app or digital asset must solve a real problem, provide genuine entertainment, or offer unique information that users find valuable in its own right.
Content is King (Still): For many digital assets, high-quality, relevant, and regularly updated content is crucial for attracting and retaining attention.
Community Building: Fostering a sense of community around an app or platform can create strong bonds and encourage repeat engagement (e.g., forums, user groups, social features).
Personalization: Using data and AI to tailor the experience to individual user preferences makes the interaction feel more relevant and valuable, increasing the likelihood of sustained attention.
Notifications: Timely, relevant, and actionable notifications can bring users back, but excessive or irrelevant notifications are a primary driver of uninstalls.
Layer these together to create experiences that resonate with your users. That’s how you gain mindshare and market share in the digital economy.
So yes, the digital world does glitter with cash flow and big opportunity… if you have distribution to a large enough audience AND you have the skills to keep them!
Oh, and try Orion now — free to sign-up with powerful features just for paid users:
👋 Thank you for reading Wealth Systems.
I want to learn what topics interest you, so connect with me on X.
…or you can find me on LNKD if that’s your deal.
I started Wealth Systems in 2023 to share the systems, technology, and mindsets that I encountered on Wall Street. I am a Wall St banker became ₿itcoin nerd, ML engineer & family office investor.
💡The BIG IDEA is share practical knowledge so we can each build and optimize our own wealth engines and combine them into a wealth system.
To help continue our growth please Like, Comment and Share this.
NOTE: The content provided on this blog is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, accounting, or legal advice. The author and the blog owner cannot guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information presented and are not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of such information.
All information on this site is provided 'as is', with no guarantee of completeness, accuracy, timeliness, or of the results obtained from the use of this information, and without warranty of any kind, express or implied. The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the site or its associates.
Any investments, trades, speculations, or decisions made on the basis of any information found on this site, expressed or implied herein, are committed at your own risk, financial or otherwise. Readers are advised to conduct their own independent research into individual stocks before making a purchase decision. In addition, investors are advised that past stock performance is no guarantee of future price appreciation.
The author is not a broker/dealer, not an investment advisor, and has no access to non-public information about publicly traded companies. This is not a place for the giving or receiving of financial advice, advice concerning investment decisions, or tax or legal advice. The author is not regulated by any financial authority.
By using this blog, you agree to hold the author and the blog owner harmless and to completely release them from any and all liabilities due to any and all losses, damages, or injuries as a result of any investment decisions you make based on information provided on this site.
Please consult with a certified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.