Interpretive Labour
Source: Research Debt in Distill Pub
There is a tradeoff between energy put into explaining an idea, and the energy needed to understand it. This energy differential is called ‘interpretive labour’
Most research is one-to-many, where there are a lot more people trying to understand a subject than explaining it. As a result, the quality of explanations have an outsized impact for the better.
Cost of understanding increases when there are more source to try to understand. This may be why people specialize so that there is less noise. Related: group limits