“Google is not going to be Facebook. Likewise, Microsoft was not going to be Google. And it is partly because, contrary to the shibboleths of user-created blah-blah, people love content—and, mirabile dictu, it increases traffic. The problem is, advertisers don’t love it. Or they don’t love it enough. Or there is so much of it, they can be fickle lovers of it—hence the cost goes down (and down). This math has actually created an entire genre of online businesses that are all about being able to keep lowering the cost of content to keep up with the ever-lower price that can be charged for it.

And yet, there is content that works—that remains unique and that commands premium pricing. That’s television—or video.

Put another way, what still works, what advertisers and audiences still seek, is superexpensive content.

And there is a model in which mature non-content-producing businesses help themselves by becoming sophisticated content producers: the premium channel business, the HBO model. HBO was not a content creator; it was effectively just an aggregator and a redistributor. But faced with higher licensing fees and lower margins, and looking to solidify its own brand, it started to produce its own content.”

Is Content the Problem or the Solution? | Adweek