A large share of the digital economy is funded by advertising, which requires attention, which is finite. The number of products competing for it has grown enormously while the hours available have not.
What the strain looks like
Advertising loads rising to maintain revenue as effectiveness falls. More interruptions per hour of content, which reduces the pleasantness of the experience, which reduces the hours people spend, which requires more advertising to compensate.
That loop is visible on nearly every platform and it only runs one way.
Why measurement got harder
Privacy changes at the operating system level removed much of the tracking that made targeted advertising measurable. Advertisers can no longer clearly attribute outcomes, which makes them less willing to pay premium rates.
The result is that advertising revenue per user has been under pressure even where usage held steady.
What is replacing it
Subscriptions, which work for products people genuinely value and fail for products people merely tolerate. The sorting is brutal and it is happening.
Commerce integration, where the platform takes a share of transactions rather than selling attention. That aligns incentives better and only works for products near a purchase decision.
And a return to advertising that is contextual rather than behavioural – matched to what is on the page rather than to who is reading it. Less precise, considerably less invasive, and increasingly competitive as behavioural targeting degrades.
The consequence for content
Formats optimised for engagement rather than value get less viable as engagement gets cheaper to buy and harder to monetise. Formats people would pay for get more viable.
Which would be a better equilibrium than the current one, if it arrives.