Advertising has always monetized consumers' time and attention, what we call engagement today. Newspapers and periodicals publish advertisements, radio/TV networks and stations air adverts, movie theaters run trailers/ads, billboards occupy our mental space while driving and websites and apps post adverts. The more media you consume, the more adverts you see/hear, and the more time you spend consuming media, the greater your exposure to advertising.

Monetizing our time and attention has a long history, as does the monetizing encroachment on what was once private time / attention. Time spent on the telephone escaped monetization until the advent of telemarketing, a particularly invasive and galling conquest of what was once a private domain. Now thanks to voicemail and robo-calling, our phones are increasingly the domain of intrusive monetization. (Is anyone else getting endless voicemails pitching services in Mandarin Chinese?)