Why it compounds
Every unfound launch raises the cost of the next one. You have taught the market that your releases are not worth watching, so the following release starts from a colder position and needs more push to travel the same distance.
It also rots morale. Each time a team ships into silence, it learns that the work does not matter, and that belief lowers the bar on everything after it. The wasted launch is cheap next to the lowered bar.
How to measure yours
List everything you launched in the last twelve months. Circle the ones your own customers could not name. That percentage is your distribution debt, and most teams sit somewhere between 50 and 60% while calling the list a roadmap.
You already track customer acquisition cost and burn. This number belongs next to them.
The argument behind the term: Distribution debt: the number nobody tracks →
Related terms: Native Organic Distribution · The citation gap · Ghost citation · Answer laundering