We’re in a trust recession – and here’s how we are going to get out
You may not have put your finger on it, but you have been feeling the malaise. You’re not liking posts so much, you’re suspicious about the images and even the video in your feed. The feeling of unease. The disappointment to see accounts you trusted start acting str-AI-ngely.
You’re reading someone’s posts and thinking, “Is this guy taking me for a ride with AI?”
I used to be a daily Substack poster and user. I quit it this week when I saw yet another. Staccato. Sentence. Non-sequitur. Looking piece of fluff. “It’s not X, it’s Y”.
My now-familiar social media red mist was rising – the one where even offline I am seething. Having learned my lesson – that sign was enough – I was out.
And Substack is the more sane social media platform.
The stats are in. Gradually – and I am 100% in sympathy with you – you too are quietly quitting your social media platforms. And so are your customers. (We’ll get to the business consequences in another post.)
The distrust economy
Remember the “attention economy”? Sharing on-point memes, cute panda babies, and random clips where humans reminded you there’s surprise and delight in the world. Baby, that’s so 2016.
Because the positive-attention economy morphed into the werewolf of the hate-attention economy. Your blood pressure would go up, and maybe your use of four letter words. But still you hung in there, because however poisonous the thrills, they were still thrills. Right?
Now AI has blown all of that into smithereens.
Only suckers believe what they see on social media today. And you’re no sucker. You don’t believe any rando on the net any more.
The distrust economy has arrived.
And that’s a good thing.
Why is the distrust economy a good thing?
I am glad you asked.
The attention economy was a street performer doing his tricks – all the while his accomplice was picking your pocket. It optimised for the appearance of trust, rather than trust itself.
But now, thanks to AI, any cretin with ChatGPT can do the street tricks – and when everyone can do them, there is no trick.
I’m happy laziness, vanity and greed have killed that economy off. I must admit – every social media platform fills me with varying shades of disgust and red mist. For all that hate and all those cons. And the human slop.
But change is in the ether.
What’s coming next
From integrity, all else flows.
Because I genuinely see an opportunity for a new economy – a trust economy based on stronger ties between actual humans. Where reputation actually matters. Where you have to walk the talk.
This will be slower than what we’ve become used to. Because it has a bottleneck – and every good bottle of wine needs a bottleneck (if you permit me….). The bottleneck is that humans have to touch the work, at the very least. Even better, humans become the benchmark for human-centred experience. Or customer-centred experience, if you want to be more hardheaded about it.
It’s become apparent that the things that makes us human are imperfections, and we respond to imperfections because we’re human. Does that mean shoddy behaviour, goods, and services? Of course not. But it does mean that at the moment there’s a gap between human-first and tech-first interaction. And if there’s a gap, there’s an opportunity.
The trust economy will be slower because building reputation takes time. You have to turn up every day and do something the bots can’t do. Which means being creative. If this kind of creativity is new to you, or even if it’s intimidating, embrace it. A gentle hug is enough for a good start.
Integrity, reputation, trust. That’s the future.
And because that’s a hell of a lot of work, those thieves of our attention don’t stand a chance.
I’m up for it. Who else is in?