Definition
An attention tax is a small cost strangers pay to interrupt you. sift.mx implements that tax as a member-set cover on email and chat while trusted contacts remain free.
Zero price, infinite demand
Email and DMs made global messaging free. The result is predictable: your attention is treated as a commons. Filters hide symptoms; they do not restore a price.
Covers reintroduce scarcity
A cover does not claim every message is valuable. It claims unknown access should not be free. People who truly need you can pay; automation that sprays everyone usually will not.
You keep the upside
Unlike a corporate spam appliance, sift.mx routes cover payments to the person whose attention was requested—so the economics favor the human at the end of the handle.