Ancient Shorthand

As writing moved from stone and clay to papyrus, parchment, and paper, it also got simpler, less pictographic in some cultures. Is it possible that this happened at least partially because of the increased availability and reduced cost of the written medium, causing an increase in the quantity of written documents? With simplified symbols, documents (and copies of them) could be created much faster. A “shorthand” was developed and quickly replaced the original.