YouTubers understand the Attention Economy

The Imminent Doom of YouTube is a user-made faux-conspiracy documentary about MySpace attempting to take over YouTube. The telling quote comes at the very end when the announcer warns us:

…Only then can we distract enough attention from them [the MySpace plants]. Only then will YouTube survive.

What’s amazing to me is that the 19 year old creator so naturally understands that in the online world, attention equals survival. The more radical notions of Goldhaber’s attention economy will not seem so radical in a few years.