Lowering the cost of building digital products to zero does not help new entrepreneurs succeed because human attention is a finite 'hard limit' that enforces a winner-take-all market.
April 1, 2026
Original Paper
Attention Scarcity and Builder Saturation in Digital Markets
SSRN · 6507106
The Takeaway
Common wisdom suggests that AI tools will democratize success by making it free to build apps. However, this study shows that as entry costs drop, the amount of attention per builder remains fixed by the ratio of entry cost to monetization, meaning 25% of apps will still receive almost zero downloads regardless of how easy they are to make.
From the abstract
AI-assisted tools have reduced digital production costs toward zero, fuelling claims that entrepreneurial success will proliferate. This paper shows that finite human attention limits this prediction. In a free-entry model with logit attention allocation, equilibrium attention per builder equals the ratio of entry cost to monetisation rate, independent of market size. Cost reductions increase entry but not per-builder returns. Adding preferential-attachment dynamics produces power-law concentrat