How much is an hour of your attention worth?

How much value can you squeeze out of an hour of attention?

This chart shows how much revenue different platforms generate per user hour (subscriptions + advertising). Three stories emerge:

1. Meta are masters of monetization.
Instagram ($1.31/hr) and Facebook ($1.12/hr) extract more value per hour than anyone else. Precision targeting, conversion effectiveness, and relentless optimization make every incremental minute highly valuable.

2. Premium SVODs are maxing out yield, but not scale.
HBO Max and Paramount+ (~$0.85/hr) are among the most effective streamers in turning hours into dollars. But their audiences are smaller compared to Netflix or YouTube. Yield is high, but does this approach cap their growth?

3. Scale players earn less per hour, but have the biggest upside.
Netflix ($0.40/hr), YouTube ($0.18/hr), and FAST platforms (~$0.15/hr) generate massive revenues by monetizing billions of hours at modest rates. The opportunity: raise monetization efficiency closer to today’s leaders - and multiply dollars on top of already massive scale.

Who has the best shot at closing the gap - Netflix, YouTube, or FAST? And how do you think this picture changes over the next few years?