How would you create an economy of intention?
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The Intention Economy
Over the last ten-ish years, our behaviour and social systems have changed a lot, at least in part to what has been dubbed "the attention economy" both by people who disdain the changes and those who see opportunity in harnessing the world's eyeballs and mindspace.
A lot has been written about this and I am going to operate for the purposes of this conversation with the expectation that you're both familiar with the concept and somewhere between 'mildly disenchanted with' and 'full of nausea and fear about the consequences of' this shift.
If we want technology to serve us and not the other way around, we have to change things at some very fundamental levels, such as how we incubate businesses in the tech space and how much entrenched power we afford companies that exploit unlimited behavioural data collection in service of their own bottom lines.
But another thing we have to think about is design.
Great design starts by understanding what goals we want to serve, and in my mind, those goals are the ones that lead to us feeling better, more inter-dependent, and more compassionate. These are well-documented aspects of well-being that are apolitical and healthy for every human.
Great design incorporates these goals and makes them easier, more habitual, more natural, and reinforces itself by having lots of room to keep "achieving more" and finding the more you put in, the more opportunity there is to get more benefit- like a spiritual practice or maybe even a very sophisticated game. Human connection actually works like this, we don't even have to add points or levels.
Human connection is also something that suffers when it's commodified. So there's a bit of an interesting challenge in creating the intention economy around relationships.
So what does the intention economy look like? I don't think it can be purely a matter of "this is better for us." Sure, we may recognise that "we're the product" but if the option is to pay or not pay, we are hard-wired to pick free. This means we have to start thinking more creatively. We have to pay for the value we get by choosing and being supported in choice, not just because there's some general advantage to paying for a service.
When you think of your communities, I wonder how economies work within them? For example, we spend money on things we do together in real life, not always because there's any tangible return. How can that model be inspiration for the spaces and experiences we offer virtually? How can we support the people who contribute to communities, who organize communities and work for free? How can we make sure finances are not a barrier to people who want to participate (unless the community is organized around being financially successful- no shade!)
Are there models you use to ensure that financial reward isn't the motivation for people contributing (which creates yucky transactionality) but still is financially viable? Can design help us make good choices?
I'm mostly curious about this at the moment, without having answers. There are interesting projects in this space. Do any of them answer the question about building the infrastructure of online community to support intention?
If you have ideas, let's talk!