Content shock 2.0: Production is free, distribution expensive

In 2014, Mark Schaefer introduced the concept of Content Shock.

I remember being impressed by his argument. I had already seen low-cost content factories entering the market, producing SEO content at prices that would have been difficult to imagine just a few years earlier. Technology was also making visual content production cheaper and easier.

Schaefer’s argument was simple. Content production was growing much faster than people’s capacity to consume it. Eventually, companies would have to spend more and more to attract the same amount of attention.

It made sense to me then. And it makes even more sense today.

A decade later, generative AI is accelerating the same development.

AI is making content and creative production dramatically cheaper.

The marginal cost of producing yet another article, ad version, new image or video is close to zero.

And when production costs approach zero, we should expect production volumes to explode.

Unfortunately, it won’t help anyone.

The amount of attention available isn’t growing at the same rate.

People still have roughly the same number of hours in a day. They won’t suddenly read ten times more articles or watch ten times more videos because AI makes them cheaper to produce.

The supply of content increases, while the demand, measured in human attention, remains constrained.

The inevitable result is that the average piece of content receives less attention.

Production is almost free. Distribution becomes more expensive.

For years, content marketing and SEO offered companies an alternative to paid advertising. Produce useful content, attract organic traffic and gradually build an audience.

But when everyone can produce almost unlimited content, production itself no longer provides much of a competitive advantage.

Getting that content in front of an audience becomes the difficult part.

And increasingly, companies have to pay for distribution.

We can see how advertising expenditure is growing by looking at the financial reports of Alphabet and Meta.

Annual advertising revenue, USD billions

Sources: Alphabet 2025 Annual Report and Meta 2025 Annual Report.

In just two years, the combined annual advertising revenue of these two companies increased by approximately $121 billion, or 33%.

And the growth continues.

In the third quarter of 2026, Alphabet reported Google advertising revenue of $82 billion, up 11% year-on-year. Meta reported advertising revenue of $63 billion, up 26%.

More importantly, Meta reported that its average price per ad increased by 14%, while advertising impressions increased by 10%.

Sources: Alphabet Q3 2026 and Meta Q3 2026.

Of course, increasing advertising revenue doesn’t necessarily mean that advertising is becoming more expensive and return on marketing expensive is decreasing. Advertising volumes, engagement and effectiveness also matter.

But Meta’s figures show that both advertising volumes and average prices are increasing.

This doesn’t prove that generative AI is responsible. Advertising expenditure was growing long before ChatGPT appeared. And advertising platforms always try to increase their profits by algorithmic changes. But AI is removing a critical constraint on content production. It intensifies competition for attention.

AI may simply redistribute marketing budgets

Companies can save money on copywriting, graphic design and video production.

But those savings may end up in the pockets of Google, Meta, LinkedIn and other advertising platforms.

The economic advantage of producing content cheaply disappears when everyone else can do the same.

Of course, original ideas, established audiences and strong brands still matter. But producing more content is unlikely to compensate for declining organic visibility.

When I first read Schaefer’s article, content production was becoming cheaper, but there were still practical limits to how much companies could produce.

Generative AI is removing many of those limits.

I suspect an increasing share of marketing budgets will be spent on distribution rather than production.

AI is making content cheaper. It isn’t making human attention any less scarce.

And the biggest economic winners may be the companies selling access to that attention.