For the better part of the last decade, the dominant logic of the internet was simple: optimize for engagement at all costs. Outrage, provocation, infinite scroll and short form content in hyper-personalized feeds. It worked brilliantly according to the metrics we worshipped. Time-on-site went up. Daily active users climbed. The dopamine economy matured. And now, AI systems and autonomous bots have become accelerants — not just capturing attention, but manufacturing it at machine scale, amplifying outrage faster than humans can metabolize it. 

We’re entering the bill-paying phase of that experiment. Because while rage scales infinitely, it doesn’t compound. And systems built to mine outrage for growth eventually reach their limit. Not because outrage becomes less potent, but because people reach their threshold. 

Users fatigue. Advertisers don’t like being attached to chaos. Reputation-sensitive brands quietly exit. Talent decides their career equity is worth more than a company’s growth-at-any-cost incentives. The erosion isn’t theoretical. It’s already underway. 

The Market Is Signaling Exhaustion 

Traditional media — especially news — is collapsing under the weight of its own incentives. Once-essential institutions are now scrambling for new revenue models as audiences tire of engineered panic, performative objectivity, and doom-loop headlines. They optimized for attention; they lost their viewership. 

Tesla offers another case study. Its product remains strong, but the brand has absorbed so much polarizing energy — fueled by the behavior of its most visible ambassador — that global demand wanes and brand equity — once among the most admired in the world — has collapsed. The product didn’t suddenly fail. The trust reservoir did. 

Outrage delivered attention. It also, not so quietly, taxed preference. 

Now the accelerator arrives: AI-mediated cynicism. Grokipedia doesn’t just reflect outrage culture. Instead, it leverages and accelerates it. It industrializes it. A lobotomized Grok, optimized for smirk-irony over signal, doesn’t democratize truth; it dilutes it. This isn’t a platform searching for clarity,  it’s a system manufacturing noise at scale, accelerating trust collapse rather than repairing it. 

The Shift From Attention to Decency 

Attention was once the scarce resource. Not anymore. It’s abundant, automated, and increasingly disposable. 

We are drowning in content, alerts, feeds, notifications, opinions, and synthetic certainty. What’s scarce now is trust. It’s under attack and needs to be protected. 

That requires decency. Not performative morality. Not corporate platitudes, but the discipline to avoid cheap extraction. Decency is emerging as the competitive edge. Quietly. Decisively. 

Decency in this context simply means: build systems that maintain user confidence and long-term credibility in the market, not because it’s morally fashionable, but because eroding trust is bad business. 

Why This Creates an Advantage 

Look at Costco. It refuses to squeeze customers for every last drop, protects trust as an operating system, and is rewarded with fierce loyalty. People wear Kirkland t-shirts unironically — and yes, the $1.50 hot dog matters. It’s not a gimmick; it’s a signal of discipline and respect for the customer. The company has built a fortress not through hype, but through steadiness, restraint, and a refusal to erode the relationship for short-term gain. 

This philosophy pays dividends: brand resilience, loyalty that lowers churn and acquisition costs, and the ability to attract high-integrity talent who know their values won’t be collateral. Trust gives companies the freedom to innovate without fear that a single misstep will collapse the relationship. 

The Next Era Won’t Reward Volume. It Will Reward Credibility 

If the last era of the internet rewarded whoever could exploit attention, the next will reward whoever can be trusted with it. 

Not by being sanitized or saccharine. But by exercising judgment. By valuing decency over short-term provocation. By building systems that treat people as relationships, not raw material for growth curves. 

In a culture addicted to noise, restraint becomes signal. In a market distracted by acceleration, stability becomes innovation. And in a world drowning in rage economics, decency becomes a moat. 

Not because it feels good. Because the alternative is no longer viable. 

The future doesn’t belong to the loudest brand or the cleverest algorithm. It belongs to the companies and creators who can grow without poisoning the ecosystem they depend on. 

Rage corrodes. Decency endures. And the market will reward those who prove it first.