For the last 20 years, distribution was the advantage.

If you could reach people through ads, SEO, inboxes, or influencers, you could win. Scale beat nuance. Whoever got in front of the most eyeballs the fastest usually came out ahead.

That era is fading.

Everyone now has the same tools.
Same ad platforms. Same email software. Same AI.
When everyone plays the same game, nobody wins on reach anymore.

We are not short on content. We are short on belief.

Welcome to the trust economy.

The End of the Distribution Edge

Every business today knows how to get in front of people.
Run Meta ads. Launch a newsletter. Use AI to crank out content.
It's cheap. It's fast. And it is everywhere.

But that sameness is killing impact.
Your inbox is full of “personalized” emails that sound identical.
Your feed is a blur of ads that could have been written by the same brand.
It is not just oversaturation. It is desensitization.

When distribution gets commoditized, it stops being a moat.

What Fills the Gap: Trust

Reach is easy to buy. Trust is harder to earn.

People do not make decisions based on who shows up the most.
They make decisions based on who they believe.
They ask people they know. They watch who others follow.
They pay attention to brands that feel real, not rehearsed.

This shows up in small moments:

• A recommendation in a group chat
• A friend saying, “You would like this brand”
• A product you keep seeing used by people you respect

You will not find these moments in attribution reports.
But they are what actually move people to act.

Distribution Still Matters, But Only After Trust

This is not an anti-ad stance.
Distribution works when it amplifies trust that already exists.

If your brand has a loyal base, you should run ads. You should promote the content.
Those messages land because people already believe you.

But if you do not have trust, distribution only exposes the gap faster.
You cannot pay your way into someone's community if the community does not vouch for you.

Why This Is a Business Shift, Not Just a Marketing One

Most companies are built around what can be measured.
They invest in ads because they can track return on ad spend.
They send more emails because they can count opens and clicks.
They scale campaigns, not relationships.

Trust is what actually drives referrals, loyalty, and pricing power.
And it does not show up in dashboards.

The companies that will win in the trust economy think differently.

They go deeper, not just broader.
They care about who talks about them, not just how many see them.
They focus on being useful and memorable, not just visible.

They are not trying to reach everyone.
They are trying to matter to the right people, and let those people do the rest.

This Is Already Happening

You can see it in every category.
Brands are winning by building trust first, then scaling.

Whoop did not buy its way into the mainstream at first.
It earned trust in high-intent communities like gravel cycling, CrossFit gyms, and strength coaches.
Only after building credibility did it move into partnerships with pro athletes and major leagues.
It did not chase attention. It earned belief and amplified that through paid media.

Linear and Fathom spread through word of mouth in Slack groups.
Operators and designers shared them because they worked, not because they were paid to.

I see this firsthand on my local gravel rides.
People recommend Rodeo Labs because their founder is deeply engaged in the community.
Mumu Cycling Apparel comes up not because of marketing dollars, but because riders want to support a Florida-based company they believe in.

These brands did not skip distribution.
They just understood that distribution works best when it follows trust.

These are not flukes.
They are signals of what is next.

What to Do Now

If you are building something today, start by asking different questions.

Not “How do we reach more people?”
Ask “Why would someone talk about us when we are not in the room?”

Not “What channel should we run this on?”
Ask “Do people already trust us enough to care?”

Not “Can we automate this?”
Ask “Does this feel real?”

Trust does not scale easily. But that is what makes it valuable.
It is harder to build, harder to measure, and harder to copy.
Which makes it the only edge that lasts.

—Greg