This is ultimately where the Great Refusal had led, not to a bang but a whimper. Faced with a new abundance of choice and a friction-less system of choosing, we individuals, in our natural weak-mindedness, could not resist frittering away our attention, which once had been harvested from us so ceremoniously. And the choices would continue to proliferate. As they did, and the attention merchants’ work grew more challenging, the strategies for getting the job done would grow only more various and desperate.

Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, loc. 636