By 2000, the consensus was that the "old media"—the industries that had captured the preponderance of human attention over the last century—were basically doomed. They could try as they might to delay the future, but ultimately the new would replace the old as it always had. The legacy attention merchants and their collaborators in advertising were, by this understanding, on a path to extinction. "It's our country. It's our media now. It's our time and attention," wrote Jeff Jarvis, prominent booster of the new media. "Sorry if we, the people, disappoint you. But does it occur to you that you disappointed us?"

Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, loc. 858