I'm grateful for the dad-like figure who posted a two-minute YouTube tutorial on how to install my washing machine. Clear instructions, perfect framing, solved my problem in one take.
I could not tell you who he was if my life depended on it.
This is the gap most content falls into. Useful in the moment. Gone by the next day. The information served its purpose, but the person who created it left no trace.
The logic of comprehensive content
Before I argue against it, I want to acknowledge why comprehensive content became the default. The logic made sense.
In SEO, an ultimate guide on a loaded topic could rank for hundreds of keywords. Sometimes thousands. One page pulling organic traffic for "how to start a blog," "blogging for beginners," "starting a blog," and dozens of related queries. The comprehensive approach wasn't just helpful. It was a traffic engine.
The same logic applied to video. An hour-long YouTube tutorial on how to build a WordPress website gave viewers a course-like experience for free. Massive value, massive watch time, massive reach. Creators built entire audiences on being the person who held your hand through the whole process.
This worked. For years, this was the proven playbook: address the search intent comprehensively, cover every angle, leave no gaps. If someone landed on your page with a question, they should leave with an answer.
I'm not dismissing this approach. It produced genuinely valuable content. It also trained us to optimize for coverage rather than memorability. The landscape has shifted.
The AI shift
Here's what changed: AI isn't just synthesizing information. It's personalizing it.
Last month, I was setting up the Apple Developer Program. Configuring StoreKit, navigating Xcode, filling out forms I'd never seen before. A few years ago, I would have Googled each step, found articles or YouTube walkthroughs, and pieced together what applied to my situation.
Instead, I asked Claude. It walked me through step by step, adapting to my specific context. When I hit an error, it adjusted. When my setup differed from the standard flow, it accounted for that. No scrubbing through a 15-minute video to find the one part that mattered. No skimming five articles to triangulate an answer. Just direct guidance for exactly what I was trying to do.
AI still gets things wrong. The threat isn't perfection—it's that good-enough personalization changes where people start.
The personalization gap
This is the threat to utilitarian content. Not that AI summarizes existing tutorials. It becomes the better tutorial. Real-time, adaptive, specific to you.
The washing machine dad is still safe. You need to see someone install a washing machine. Visual, hands-on content has some protection. Text-based utility content? The 10-minute explainer? The step-by-step guide that doesn't show you anything you couldn't describe in words? That's the category under pressure.
What still sticks
Watch a TED talk that stays with you. Read a non-fiction book you still reference years later. Listen to a stand-up set that changes how you see something familiar.
They all share a structure: one central idea, with everything else in service of it.
Simon Sinek's talk isn't "about leadership." It's people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. Brené Brown's isn't "about emotions." It's vulnerability is the birthplace of connection. You absorb the thesis in a sentence. The supporting points reinforce it, illustrate it, make it stick.
This is what AI can't replicate on demand: a perspective that reframes how you see the work. An argument that couldn't be synthesized from existing material because it came from someone who actually did the thing and noticed something others missed.
Comprehensive content serves the immediate intent. Thesis-driven content shifts how you think. That's what survives the forgetting.
Topic vs. thesis
A topic is what the content is about. A thesis is what the content argues.
"How to train for a marathon" is a topic. You could write a dozen pieces under that heading, all covering the same ground, none memorable.
"A marathon is a mental practice disguised as a physical one" is a thesis. Now there's an argument. Every training tip becomes evidence for the mental game. The reader absorbs a framework, not just a schedule.
Topic states subject. Thesis makes argument.
The thesis doesn't narrow the content. You can still be comprehensive. Now there's a spine that everything attaches to. Something the reader can hold onto when the details fade.
Finding the thesis
This is the hard part. Especially for established subjects where the conventional framing feels locked in.
What's the misconception? Most people think X, but actually Y. The thesis becomes the correction. "Most people think marathon training is about building endurance. Actually, it's about building mental tolerance for discomfort."
What's the transformation? If the reader fully absorbed this, what would change? Name that shift. "You'll stop organizing your closet and start making the decisions you've been avoiding."
What would you argue at dinner? If someone asked your opinion on this topic and you had to take a position, what would it be? The thesis is often hiding in the opinion you'd defend.
What connects the tips? If you have eight tactics, ask: what do they share? What principle are they all evidence for? That principle might be the thesis.
could they give a one-sentence answer that captures
the argument, not just the subject?"
The thesis test
When you don't need a thesis
Not all content needs to be memorable. Sometimes you just need to install a washing machine.
Just-in-time utility is a legitimate strategy. FAQ-style content that solves problems quickly. Reference material people bookmark and return to. Tutorials that walk through steps without editorializing.
This content doesn't need a thesis. It needs clarity, accuracy, and speed.
The mistake is creating utility content while hoping for thought-leadership outcomes. Those are different goals. You can be the washing machine dad, valuable in the moment, invisible afterward. Or you can argue something worth remembering. Know which you're building.
Both are valid. Know which you're making.
The bet
My bet for where content needs to go: utility wrapped in argument.
You can still be comprehensive. You can still serve the search intent. The piece needs a through-line. A central claim that gives the reader something to hold onto when the tips blur together.
The washing machine dad doesn't need this. His content is pure utility. That's fine. If you're trying to build a brand, earn trust, get referenced and reshared, the thesis is what makes that possible. It's the hook that memory grabs onto. The thing that survives.
In a world where AI can personalize utility on demand, the pieces that stand out are the ones that argued something worth remembering.
This is a working document. The thinking continues to evolve.