The Coming Content Marketing Crisis: When Nothing Is Interesting Anymore

“If anything is possible, then nothing is interesting.”― H.G. Wells

In addition to being one of my favourite authors, it’s fair to say that Herbert George Wells was one of the greatest visionaries of the 19th and 19th centuries. A prolific author, he penned stories far ahead of their time, like The Time Machine, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Invisible Man, and The War of the Worlds. Indeed, it’s fair to assume that many reading this will be more familiar with the many much later movie and television adaptations of these titles, despite the fact that they were originally published in 1895, 1896, 1897, and 1898 respectively.

To me, Wells’ gift was the ability to see the big picture (and, I mean, the very big picture!), but effortlessly dovetail such observations, and their often terrifying implications, with relatable normality. In doing so, the threatening parties in his stories, be they indifferent but calculating Martians, or brutally aggressive Morlocks, become believable and real - thus all the more disturbing. And, so too was Wells’ profound comment about the achievable possibilities of life.

At first, the statement “if anything is possible, then nothing is interesting” seems innocuous, and almost off the cuff. But, it has been playing on my mind for most of this year. And, as the months have rolled by and the AI revolution has gathered steam, it has only become more poignant. I think it is nothing less than a clarion call for us all - especially those involved in content creation and marketing.

The mainstream AI debate; efficiency and productivity vs. job losses and the rise of the machines

By now, most people are becoming aware of the incredible creative powers of AI - in terms of generating texts, images, music, and much more. And, as I’ve previously discussed, there’s no doubt that artificial intelligence tools offer the promise of huge efficiency savings and creative potential. And, as to be expected, businesses the world over are falling over themselves to adopt AI tools, resulting in something of an arms race, with everyone desperate not to be left behind.

As equally expected, there’s also been a strong backlash against the technology, with unions warning about mass job losses (not without valid reason), and repentant techies sounding the alarm over the possibility of AI concluding that we’re mere pests and exterminating mankind (Martian-style). But, what has surprised me is that very few people have discussed the issue that Mr. Wells alluded to all those years ago - namely that if we, as a species, become endowed with the ability to do anything, then we’ll find everything becomes meaningless.

Cheat codes and broadcast TV; the importance of challenge and anticipation

Anyone who played computer games back in the 90s and early 2000s will remember cheat codes. They always seemed like a great idea, and you’d eagerly seek them out for your favourite games. But, they also very quickly destroyed the entertainment value of those games. Simply put, once you could do anything in the game, without solving the problems or developing the required skills, the endorphins stopped being released into your brain and all sense of achievement and enjoyment evaporated.

A similar phenomenon has happened with television. We all think we love Netflix and Amazon, and perhaps we do, to an extent. But, anyone who remembers broadcast television, physically renting movies, or going to the cinema, will know that it seemed far more exciting back then. Time and again, you’ll hear people lament the loss of good movies and television programming, as they pine for the good old days. Usually, they attribute the gradual loss of entertainment value to a degradation of production quality and acting talent. And, while these factors are likely at play, there’s a much more fundamental reason - the moment we could access virtually any movie or program, at any time, we lost any sense of anticipation and any sense of achievement of being able to see it.

Think about it - if you had to wait another week for the next episode of a series, then the anticipation gave it more entertainment value. Likewise, when you didn’t know if Blockbuster would have a copy of the movie you wanted available (and believe me, I used to work at one, and people would hang around the drop box for the hottest new movies to be returned), it gave you a sense of achievement when you got the desired movie home. Going to the cinema also involved waiting and effort, and hence anticipation and achievement.

Anyway, you get my point. Remove the anticipation, and investment of time and effort, and things very quickly become boring.

More content, but less interest - from both creators and consumers

Bearing this phenomenon in mind, I look back on the last eight months or so and wonder if the same thing is happening in the world of digital content. In May, I asked if AI tools will overwhelm our ability to effectively curate digital content. I speculated that in everything from online casino games to TV shows and social media content, the massive increase in productivity caused by AI tools would, quite simply lead to so much content being produced that it would inevitably lose its intrinsic value - even if the technical quality of much of the content actually improved. I’ve also thought about what this means for search engines, and that linchpin of online marketing, SEO. But, is there something much more concerning also happening? Do the sheer creative possibilities unleashed signal the death of interest?

At this point, I know some people will argue that the ‘democratisation of creativity’ is a good thing - that all those frustrated writers, artists, and composers can now be liberated to achieve amazing things. But, let’s be realistic here. Yes, at first, the idea of everyone being able to create anything sounds fantastic. It sounds almost utopian. And, for a few days, I myself donned those rose-tinted glasses and let myself believe we were on the verge of a creative golden age.

However, everything in life is relative. People want to be able to create amazing things because they currently can’t. It is the very fact that they can’t that drives them to improve their skills and make constant achievements (each of which is awarded with feel-good brain chemicals). This holds true in any discipline - from painting and writing to sports and engineering. If there were ‘cheat codes’ available for these things, what incentive would there be to push and improve abilities and skills?

Furthermore, by the same reasoning, once everyone knows they can create virtually anything (if they decided they wanted to), then why would they find the creations of others to be impressive? Think about that - you don’t find the things you can easily do to be impressive, but others may do. As the old saying goes “It’s easy once you know how.” Why would anyone find a novel to be impressive if they perceive that they could easily write one themself? Why would anyone find a painting to be incredible, if they assumed they could knock one up in a few seconds? Why would people be impressed by photography or music? Note, I used the word ‘perceive’ - because, when it comes to the big picture, that is what matters. Sure, there will always be some people who do find things fascinating, who do value things, but as long as the critical mass of society loses interest, then it won’t matter.

Disinterest is about to torpedo marketing businesses

Why does it matter? Because, if creators themselves have ‘cheat codes’ (AI tools), then they will inevitably lose the motivation for improvement. They will lose interest in their own creations (relative to the interest they had before). The result will be an exponentially increasing volume of content that becomes less and less interesting. At the same time, the consumers of the content - who may not be creators per se, but will be aware they could access the same tools and create easily if they wanted to - will be less and less impressed by, and hence interested in, that exponentially increasing volume of content.

It's something of a compounding death spiral.

So, what can marketers do? Well, I’m not even going to pretend to have a concrete answer (I’ve got a few ideas, but they are very much ‘thoughts in progress’). AI is Pandora’s Box - once opened, short of a cataclysm that sends us back to the pre-industrial age (which actually may be on the cards), it can’t be closed again. As long as AI tools are available and developing, the flow of content and corresponding apathy toward it will only increase. In this reality, marketers in all industries, but especially those like iGaming affiliation, where content quality was already questionable before AI arrived on the scene, need to take a step back and completely rethink their strategies. Anyone thinking that scaling and SEO are going to enable them to remain viable is in denial about the scale and nature of change unfolding right now.

Now, granted, that’s a whole lot of words to describe what HG Wells wrote in just eight, but it's something worth thinking about.