After I shared The Physics of Distribution, someone asked a question that stopped me in my tracks:
“If distribution is motion, then where does the energy come from — and what causes it to decay?”
That question (from @kmacb.eth) is the reason this essay exists. If the first piece was about how ideas move, this one is about what powers that movement — and why most of that energy disappears before anything meaningful happens.
Because motion isn’t free, nothing spreads just because it’s good. Something has to fuel it — attention, pain, belief, identity, liquidity. And something always pushes back — friction, confusion, skepticism, fatigue.
So this is the sequel: The Thermodynamics of Attention.
Where energy comes from. What resists it? Why does fatigue set in? How systems like Drawcast manage to store attention instead of leaking it. Why do some ideas become culture while others fade into silence?
Energy in physics is the capacity to do work.
Energy in networks is the capacity to create action — a tap, a mint, a reply, a ritual.
Attention isn’t just awareness — it’s potential energy waiting to become movement.
Like energy, it can:
Enter a system (through curiosity, pain, identity, novelty, belief)
Meet resistance (friction, confusion, hesitation)
Leak (into apathy, silence, forgetfulness)
Or be stored (as culture, identity, on-chain memory, tokens, habits)
Most products don’t die from lack of attention —
They die because attention was never captured and stored.
Energy flows into a system when something demands action.
Pain — the strongest fuel; pain pulls harder than promotion.
Curiosity & play — low-pressure energy that invites participation.
Identity & status — “This says something about who I am.”
Belief — attention + conviction = energy that lasts longer than novelty.
Liquidity — potential energy, waiting for a story or incentive to activate it.
Every action costs energy.
Too many steps.
Wallet pop-ups.
No emotional payoff.
No recognition.
Nothing that signals: you matter here.
This is entropy — energy turning into waste heat.
In networks, it’s attention turning into indifference.
Fatigue isn’t the absence of attention — it’s attention with nowhere to go.
When effort creates no progress, no memory, no value — people burn out.
Fatigue = energy that wasn’t stored.
It's entropy experienced by humans.
And then — a live example.
Drawcast, created by serial-builder @tamastorok.eth, is a Farcaster mini-app where people draw, and others guess. It looks like a simple game. It’s actually a live demonstration of attention physics.
In the first version, users were asked to draw immediately.
Drawing is high effort + social risk. Most people bailed.
Week-one retention: ~18%
Then one change shifted everything:
Guess first. Draw later.
One tap. No vulnerability. Immediate feedback.
Suddenly:
69% of new users guessed in their first session
Week-one retention jumped to ~21%
Attention stayed long enough to be stored
Drawcast didn’t just grab attention — it stored it.
Stored As | How It Happens in Drawcast |
|---|---|
Culture | Cursed doodles, frog memes, shared jokes |
Identity & Status | Leaderboards, usernames attached to guesses |
Onchain Memory | Every draw, guess, and treasure chest is recorded |
Potential Capital | Treasure chests → DRAW tokens (attention → liquidity) |
Habit | Checking Drawcast becomes a daily reflex |
Users who guessed + opened a chest came back at ~38% retention.
Because their attention became identity, memory, and value.
Once attention is stored, it can return to the system.
Guess → Reward → Identity → Return
Return → Culture → More Users → More Energy
Not perpetual motion — but momentum.
Where does the energy come from?
Attention, pain, belief, identity, play, liquidity.
What resists it?
Friction, confusion, cognitive effort, skepticism.
What leaks?
Attention that isn’t stored — no memory, no reward, no identity.
What stores it?
Culture, on-chain proof, habit, status, tokens, shared memory.
Is the juice worth the squeeze?
Only if attention compounds instead of evaporates.
Distribution isn’t about going viral.
It’s about designing systems that capture attention before it cools — and convert it into something that lasts.
Attention is motion.
Stored attention is gravity.
After I shared The Physics of Distribution, someone asked a question that stopped me in my tracks:
“If distribution is motion, then where does the energy come from — and what causes it to decay?”
That question (from @kmacb.eth) is the reason this essay exists. If the first piece was about how ideas move, this one is about what powers that movement — and why most of that energy disappears before anything meaningful happens.
Because motion isn’t free, nothing spreads just because it’s good. Something has to fuel it — attention, pain, belief, identity, liquidity. And something always pushes back — friction, confusion, skepticism, fatigue.
So this is the sequel: The Thermodynamics of Attention.
Where energy comes from. What resists it? Why does fatigue set in? How systems like Drawcast manage to store attention instead of leaking it. Why do some ideas become culture while others fade into silence?
Energy in physics is the capacity to do work.
Energy in networks is the capacity to create action — a tap, a mint, a reply, a ritual.
Attention isn’t just awareness — it’s potential energy waiting to become movement.
Like energy, it can:
Enter a system (through curiosity, pain, identity, novelty, belief)
Meet resistance (friction, confusion, hesitation)
Leak (into apathy, silence, forgetfulness)
Or be stored (as culture, identity, on-chain memory, tokens, habits)
Most products don’t die from lack of attention —
They die because attention was never captured and stored.
Energy flows into a system when something demands action.
Pain — the strongest fuel; pain pulls harder than promotion.
Curiosity & play — low-pressure energy that invites participation.
Identity & status — “This says something about who I am.”
Belief — attention + conviction = energy that lasts longer than novelty.
Liquidity — potential energy, waiting for a story or incentive to activate it.
Every action costs energy.
Too many steps.
Wallet pop-ups.
No emotional payoff.
No recognition.
Nothing that signals: you matter here.
This is entropy — energy turning into waste heat.
In networks, it’s attention turning into indifference.
Fatigue isn’t the absence of attention — it’s attention with nowhere to go.
When effort creates no progress, no memory, no value — people burn out.
Fatigue = energy that wasn’t stored.
It's entropy experienced by humans.
And then — a live example.
Drawcast, created by serial-builder @tamastorok.eth, is a Farcaster mini-app where people draw, and others guess. It looks like a simple game. It’s actually a live demonstration of attention physics.
In the first version, users were asked to draw immediately.
Drawing is high effort + social risk. Most people bailed.
Week-one retention: ~18%
Then one change shifted everything:
Guess first. Draw later.
One tap. No vulnerability. Immediate feedback.
Suddenly:
69% of new users guessed in their first session
Week-one retention jumped to ~21%
Attention stayed long enough to be stored
Drawcast didn’t just grab attention — it stored it.
Stored As | How It Happens in Drawcast |
|---|---|
Culture | Cursed doodles, frog memes, shared jokes |
Identity & Status | Leaderboards, usernames attached to guesses |
Onchain Memory | Every draw, guess, and treasure chest is recorded |
Potential Capital | Treasure chests → DRAW tokens (attention → liquidity) |
Habit | Checking Drawcast becomes a daily reflex |
Users who guessed + opened a chest came back at ~38% retention.
Because their attention became identity, memory, and value.
Once attention is stored, it can return to the system.
Guess → Reward → Identity → Return
Return → Culture → More Users → More Energy
Not perpetual motion — but momentum.
Where does the energy come from?
Attention, pain, belief, identity, play, liquidity.
What resists it?
Friction, confusion, cognitive effort, skepticism.
What leaks?
Attention that isn’t stored — no memory, no reward, no identity.
What stores it?
Culture, on-chain proof, habit, status, tokens, shared memory.
Is the juice worth the squeeze?
Only if attention compounds instead of evaporates.
Distribution isn’t about going viral.
It’s about designing systems that capture attention before it cools — and convert it into something that lasts.
Attention is motion.
Stored attention is gravity.
The New Common Sense
Own Your Work. Own Your Audience. Own the Web.
The Rise of the Distribution-First Founder
For decades, founders followed the same script: build a product, raise a round, then worry about customers later. In the 2010s, the script evolved—thanks to the Lean Startup playbook—into “ship an MVP, test for traction, raise a round, then prep your GTM.” It was faster, leaner, but distribution was still left at the end of the process. But even this MVP-first approach kept the hardest part—finding customers—pushed to the back of the journey. That gap is what a new type of founder is closing....
The Physics of Distribution
How attention becomes motion.
The New Common Sense
Own Your Work. Own Your Audience. Own the Web.
The Rise of the Distribution-First Founder
For decades, founders followed the same script: build a product, raise a round, then worry about customers later. In the 2010s, the script evolved—thanks to the Lean Startup playbook—into “ship an MVP, test for traction, raise a round, then prep your GTM.” It was faster, leaner, but distribution was still left at the end of the process. But even this MVP-first approach kept the hardest part—finding customers—pushed to the back of the journey. That gap is what a new type of founder is closing....
The Physics of Distribution
How attention becomes motion.
Support jonathancolton.eth
The Thermodynamics of Attention
Support jonathancolton.eth
The Thermodynamics of Attention
>200 subscribers
>200 subscribers
Share Dialog
Share Dialog
11 comments
Attention Is Energy (If You Treat It That Way) Energy in physics is the capacity to do work. Energy in networks is the capacity to create action — a token swap, a mint, a share, a ritual. Attention isn’t just awareness — it’s potential energy waiting to become movement. Like energy, it can: -Enter a system (through curiosity, pain, identity, novelty, belief) -Meet resistance (friction, confusion, hesitation) -Leak (into apathy, silence, forgetfulness) -Or be stored (as culture, identity, on-chain memory, tokens, habits) Most products don’t die from lack of attention. They die because attention was never captured and stored. Read more: https://paragraph.com/@jonathancolton.eth/the-thermodynamics-of-attention
Will catch up on this one. Looks good!
🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
🧠 New Essay: The Thermodynamics of Attention Follow-up to The Physics of Distribution — inspired by a question from @kmacb.eth and sharpened with @tamastorok.eth. If distribution is motion, what’s the energy behind it? And why does so much of it decay before anything meaningful happens? This essay breaks down: ⚡ Where attention-energy comes from (pain, belief, identity) 🛑 Where it leaks (friction, silence, fatigue) 💾 How Drawcast stores attention instead of losing it 🌌 How motion → memory → magnetism → culture Attention is motion. Stored attention is culture. https://paragraph.com/@jonathancolton.eth/the-thermodynamics-of-attention?referrer=0xe19753f803790D5A524D1fD710D8a6D821a8Bb55
⚙️ The Thermodynamics of Attention Follow-up to The Physics of Distribution — sparked by a question from @kmacb.eth and sharpened through conversations with @tamastorok.eth. If distribution is motion, what’s the energy — and why does it decay? This essay explores attention as fuel: how it’s generated (pain, belief), how it leaks (friction, silence), and how mini-apps like Drawcast store it instead of losing it. Attention is motion. Stored attention is culture.
Look forward to giving this a read.
appreciate your attention my friend.
solid love “Every action costs energy.” follow up idea: not every action in the playbook has to be done to achieve gravity
Thanks for sharing dear 💚
Profound and brilliantly framed
🙏🏻