There’s always a market to confirm what people want to hear.
Confirmation bias is real. Especially now, when we’re all under this new (and seemingly never-ending) existential stress between the pandemic, social uprising and politics. Right now, few people want to read articles that frustrate or upset them. So, you look for things that make you happy – by confirming some belief you have.
Content creators know this works. Just look at the titles of this article as an example: With Safety Measures in Place, Students Need Sports and Arts for Mental and Emotional Wellness.
Now, regardless of whether or not you agree with this take, you can tell who this is written for. The target audience for this is the parent, teacher or coach who wants to get back to a normal fall.
The article is written by the executive director of an organization with a vested interest in sports returning.
(To be clear, I am not stating my opinion about this article, just using it as an example.)
Confirmation bias isn’t just for articles and blog posts. Here are a few others that use confirmation bias as a business model:
- US News and World Report college reports. “best bargains” or “best business schools” or whatever. If your school isn’t on the list, who cares? If it is, it’s NEWS! They know this, and give every school the ability to appear on some list by creating multiple lists of different types of schools.
- Who’s Who – I think we all got one of these letters in high school. Nobody, literally nobody, buys this book to see who else is in it. You buy it to see yourself listed and to confirm that you are indeed special. (Sometimes called vanity publishing, which I learned while typing this.)
Scam or not, there are huge businesses which prove that confirmation bias is a profitable business.
Look no further than Facebook.
$70 billion in ad-based revenue in one year. Ad impressions that are monetized by engagement. Engagement that is strengthened when you spend more time on the site. And what keeps people on the site? Seeing what they want to see, and seeing things that make them happy!
If that’s not confirmation (hah) that confirmation bias can make a huge business, even Twitter made $3.5 billion in ad-based revenue in one-year. Billion! With a B!
Look, the takeaway from this is that feeding into confirmation bias can be a good and profitable move for business.
The other, more-nuanced takeaway from this though, is that revenue-led confirmation bias is going to impact the way information is generated and consumed for a long time.
It’s up to you to decide if that market is big enough to take advantage of, and if that’s a market you want to address in the first place.