By the 2000s, so much information was being generated worldwide that only a small fraction (0.5% in 2015) of the digital data generated was being analyzed at all.

https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/attention_economy_...

Where "analyzed" probably means something other than "got any views". In any case, the claim is unsourced, so I wouldn't put much stock in it.

The way I see it, people's ability to give attention is limited, but the ability to do something worth paying attention to is even scarcer, so even the most trivial feat (like writing a comment on HN) is likely to garner at least a few views.

Becoming famous is much harder than getting any views at all, because now you need to do something so attention-grabbing that some of your few initial viewers will tell others about it and your audience size snowballs from there.