Advantages (as a hypothesis):
1. Attention is intrinsically scarce.2. Everyone wants and needs at least some.
3. Some at least seem to want all there is.
4. So-called information technologies all hold out the
promise of abetting attention getting.5. Items 1-4 explain whywe are moving in the new direction. The other two hypotheses [knowledge or information economy] don't answer this crucial question.
6. From very basic knowledge of how attention works,
we can figure out many rules of this kind of economy.7. These rules are both novel and helpful, so far.
For instance, no one puts forward information without the goal of its getting attention, and knowledge is often of help in getting attention.