> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.skalecube.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Content Shock: What Happens When Everyone Can Create Content? - URL: https://www.skalecube.com/content-shock/ - Published: 2026-10-13T03:30:50.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-13T03:30:49.000Z - Author: Aljin Vijayan - Tags: Content Marketing, Digital Marketing, content creation There was a time when content was scarce. This wasn't because people didn't have things to say, but rather because there weren't many ways to say them. A newspaper had a fixed number of pages, a television had a limited number of channels, and so on… Getting something published almost always required you to go through an editor, a publisher, or a production team. Today you can casually start blogging using your phone, but if you jump back to 2003, [barely 2% of internet users maintained a blog](https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2004/02/29/content-creation-online-2/?ref=skalecube.com) or a web diary. I think that number itself says a lot. ![Content Creation: Then vs Now](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b0/52/b052d846-efa0-441d-9e89-301a9c253aec/content/images/2026/09/Copy-of-Playbook-1.png) Publishing online back then wasn't normal. It was something a relatively small group of people went out of their way to do. The same applied to video. One of the biggest reasons early [YouTube](https://www.skalecube.com/how-youtube-algorithm-works/) creators stood out was because there simply weren't that many of them. If you had a decent idea and uploaded consistently, you had a fairly good chance of being noticed. It was a simple example of supply & demand. Supply was limited, which meant less competition, and just showing up gave creators an advantage. That era is over. Today we're living through **content shock**, and it changes what it takes to get noticed. Content shock means that on social media platforms, there is so much content being published that people cannot consume it all. ⚠️ Marketing writer [Mark Schaefer](https://businessesgrow.com/2014/01/06/content-shock/?ref=skalecube.com) made this name back in 2024. Now showing up has become ridiculously easy. Blogs became easier to create, smartphones made video creation accessible to almost anyone, and social media platforms removed the need to build your own audience from scratch. Eventually, with the advent of AI, another barrier fell: the effort required to create the content itself. ## The AI-Generated Content Flood The thing about barriers is that once they start falling, they almost never stop. Whether you need a blog post, an image, or even social media content for the next month, there are tools that can do that while you make your morning coffee. Don't believe me? Take a look at the numbers: By mid 2025, [roughly 35% of newly published websites](https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.26965?ref=skalecube.com) were either AI-generated or AI-assisted, up from pretty much zero before ChatGPT launched in late 2022. Think about that for a second. In just a few years, creating content went from requiring a specific set of skills to being something almost everyone can do. And typically, when something becomes easier to produce, you usually get a lot more of it. A LOT more! That's pretty much what happened online. We are no longer dealing with a shortage of content. If anything, we are drowning in an abundance of it. ![Content vs Attention](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b0/52/b052d846-efa0-441d-9e89-301a9c253aec/content/images/2026/09/Playbook-1--1-.png) Every platform is overflowing with content, and every creator is competing for the same thing: **Attention.** What you need to understand is that your post is no longer just going against another post in its niche. It's competing with everything else that's fighting for a few seconds of someone's attention. For years, content itself was the asset. All you had to do was create something valuable and publish it online, and you already had an advantage. Today, content is abundant.Attention isn't. And when everyone can create more content, simply creating more of it isn't going to cut it. ## Why More Content Means Less Attention? That's the core problem with **content shock.** There's no one to consume all of it. Take your **LinkedIn feed**, for example. Chances are, you could probably scroll for hours on end and find hundreds and hundreds of posts about leadership, AI marketing, productivity, entrepreneurship, or whatever it is that you are into. But how many do you sit and take the time to read? Probably not that many, right? When you're given too many options, you naturally start looking for shortcuts to decide what deserves your attention. Instead of evaluating everything, you quickly eliminate most of it and focus on the few things that stand out. People don't go through everything in front of them. They filter. This is the basic idea behind **choice overload**. ![How People Filter Content](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b0/52/b052d846-efa0-441d-9e89-301a9c253aec/content/images/2026/09/Playbook-1--2-.png) Nowadays, algorithms do a lot of that filtering for us, but we also tend to do it ourselves. Think about it. Don't you scroll past things that look repetitive or ignore things that don't seem relevant? I bet you do. And this isn't just happening on LinkedIn. The **Reuters Institute's 2025** Digital News Report found that [40% of people across 48 markets](https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2025/dnr-executive-summary?ref=skalecube.com) said they sometimes or often avoid the news, up from 29% in 2017\. The report identifies news overload as one reason people disengage. India was even higher at **50%**. That doesn't mean people suddenly stopped caring about information. It means they are becoming more selective about which information deserves their time. We're living in a world where finding information has never been easier, yet a significant number of people are actively choosing to consume less of it. What should be your takeaway? Your competition isn't all the brands making similar content. It's all the brands making content that gives people a better reason to stop. ## Trust Becomes the New Competitive Advantage So if people are becoming more selective about what they consume, how do you get them to choose you? The answer is as simple as it gets. **Build trust.** Think about it this way. Whenever your favorite creators post something, you probably don't contemplate whether or not it's worth your time. You already have a reason to listen to them. Maybe it's because of their expertise on the subject, maybe it's cause of their industry experience, maybe it's because you've seen enough of their content to know that they usually have something interesting to say. That familiarity they've built, that matters. **A LOT!** And this is one area where creators have a definite advantage over brands. A creator can spend years building credibility with an audience by sharing what they know, what they've experienced, and sometimes even what they've got wrong. [Mr.Beast](https://www.instagram.com/mrbeast/?ref=skalecube.com) didn't build an audience simply by uploading videos. The audience learned what to expect from him over time. And there's data behind this. Edelman's 2025 Brand Trust report found that [58% of people trusted influencers](https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2025-06/2025%20Edelman%20Trust%20Barometer%20Special%20Report%20Brand%20Trust%2C%20From%20We%20to%20Me%20%281%29.pdf?ref=skalecube.com) to give accurate information about a brand, the same as those who trusted the brand's CEO. That's pretty interesting to me. A creator doesn't need to be the CEO, own the company, or have a massive production team to become someone people listen to. And the reason is pretty straightforward: **Expertise creates credibility.** And credibility makes people more willing to listen. Sometimes, a mediocre-looking post from someone you trust will outperform a beautifully designed post from someone you've never heard of. ![Why Trust Matters](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b0/52/b052d846-efa0-441d-9e89-301a9c253aec/content/images/2026/09/Copy-of-Playbook-1--1--1.png) But trust alone? That's not enough either... ## The One Thing AI Can't Copy(Original Content) You can trust someone and still scroll past their content if they've got nothing new to say. And this is where originality starts to matter. Think about the content that actually makes you stop and think. Whether it's a founder explaining how they lost their biggest client, or a company sharing what happened when they tested a completely new strategy, or even a researcher publishing data that opposes what everyone else believes, the thing about all these topics is that no one can copy them. Someone could rewrite your findings into another article; they could copy your format, or they could use AI to produce something that's pretty much identical to your work. But they can't copy the experience behind it - **your experience!** AI is incredibly good at taking existing information and turning it into something that looks new but isn't. But there's a difference between **new-looking** and actually new. ![Content Anyone Can Make vs Content Only You Can Make](https://storage.ghost.io/c/b0/52/b052d846-efa0-441d-9e89-301a9c253aec/content/images/2026/09/Playbook-1--3-.png) And that's becoming more important as content gets easier to produce. And this isn't just something we're making up. A 2025 survey found that [49% of bloggers published original ](https://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/content-strategy-framework/?ref=skalecube.com)research, up from 25% in 2018. More creators are trying to bring something original to the table instead of simply rewriting what's already out there. When everyone can create a decent-looking **blog, video,** or **LinkedIn post**, creating just another one isn't much of a competitive advantage anymore. Your experience, your data, your observations, your point of view- these are way more important. So, don't just focus on creating content. Make sure it has something worth saying! ## Conclusion We're now entering a different era of content. As we have mentioned earlier, creating content is no longer the hard part. It's now easier than ever to publish content at scale! The supply of content is hence ever-growing. What's not growing is the supply of attention, which, on the contrary, might actually be declining. People have become more selective about what deserves their time. That's exactly why trust and originality now matter more than ever! To succeed today, creators and brands would need to be the ones to bring up the most unique experiences, useful insights, and perspectives - those which can't be easily replicated. The future belongs to people who create the most irreplaceable content, not the ones who create the most. 📚 If you want to know how content marketing looks in 2030, check out our [Future of Content Marketing](https://www.skalecube.com/future-of-content-marketing/) guide to know more.