When you’re a nobody, you get a zero-noise signal via metrics including likes, comments, retweets, and views. When you gain followers, even terrible content gets likes and comments from your followers giving you unearned dopamine and a false sense of accomplishment. Worse, you might even start to write pandering slop posts that you'll have to pay... See more

Most posts by anybody who blogs with any regularity are not insightful and subsequently forgotten. Volume enables more shots on goal to generate truly quality posts that generate outsized discussion and shape downstream culture:

If you write something amazing, a few emails to some key people in your field is all you need to start this process. These intellectual liquidity providers are highly incentivized to reference your work as they (1) prove to their audience that they are still capable of identifying good content from talented individuals and (2) receive goodwill from... See more

Algorithms like the YouTube algorithm seek to maximize platform engagement. Platform engagement is highly correlated with the amount of interesting material a user receives. Early versions of algorithms were heavily weighted to serve new content from large existing content creators. On average, a post from a creator with a large following is much... See more