Where Did the Long Tail Go?

In his “1,000 True Fans” essay, Kelly explains that he wasn’t as excited about this new economic model as others seemed to be. “The long tail is famously good news for two classes of people: a few lucky aggregators, such as Amazon and Netflix, and 6 billion consumers,” he writes. “But the long tail is a decidedly mixed blessing for creators.” If yo... See more

Ever since Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson first published his “Long Tail” theory in 2004, the idea has been endlessly reinforced, contradicted, and debated. He argued that the internet’s removal of physical limitations (local audiences, scarce shelf space) would empower niche products and creators to flourish.

Nonetheless, for the majority of creators, the Long Tail has underdelivered financially. “The way [Anderson] wrote about it caused people to think that individual content creators will suddenly make more money than they used to,” Edery says, “and I just don’t know that that’s true.”