The allocation question is real even though the either-or framing is wrong. What makes it tractable is recognising what each channel is genuinely good at.
They answer different business needs
Paid search buys immediate, controllable volume and stops the moment spend stops. Organic compounds slowly and persists. A business needing revenue this quarter and a business building an asset over three years should not have the same split.
Use paid to de-risk organic investment
Paid search tells you within days which terms convert. Committing six months of content investment to a keyword set nobody has tested is an avoidable risk when a small paid budget can validate it first. This is the strongest practical argument for running both.
The cannibalisation question is usually overstated
Turning off paid where you rank first sounds efficient and often reduces total clicks, because the two occupy different result positions and different moments. Test it on a subset of terms rather than assuming either direction.
Report them together
Separate channel reports encourage internal competition for credit and obscure the journey where a customer clicks an ad, researches, and returns through organic. Blended cost per acquisition across search is the number that reflects reality.