I can imagine the attention economy sinking, but I struggle to believe that we as a species won't replace it with something potentially worse.

E.g. before the internet there was TV, and advertisers have filled up that space for decades -- before that magazines and newspapers did the same. At this point, can humans believe that they are not being farmed for their eyes?

That being said, I do think the internet potentially becomes basically plumbing -- something that we don't really touch (as our AI agents or whatever comes next are the ones that absorb the content there).