Read economist Karl Muth, who invented the concept of dwell time, on why prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket are yet another attention economy. Their mechanisms also might bring us closer to the worst problem online today—of the Internet eating real life, where crowd wisdom prospectively defines reality, rather than predicting it.
By
Daniel Coutinho,
Alessandro Garcia,
Marco Gerosa,
Igor Steinmacher,
Marco Castelluccio,
Joao Correia,
Caio Barbosa,
Anita Sarma,
Anita Sarma
Feb. 2, 2026
