The impact of the winner takes all effect has been increased greatly by the improvement of technology, specifically the mass adoption of the internet.

It's fantastic if you're the winner, however, the common reaction to the winner takes all effect is often negativity, and hopelessness. This is because the vast majority of people addressing the same audience need (or discipline) don't win, getting left with nothing as the winner takes all.

This model unpacks the idea that although the internets increased access means there are less winners for each discipline, there are now far more disciplines to win, with a hugely increased and fragmented, niche market.

The rare instance of sharing a similar interest

As humans, we each have different needs and interests. We may have a similar interest to someone we know, but the depth of that interest often varies. You'll often struggle to identify with friends or family on your one, deep interest you have in a topic, commonly known as niche topics. However, if you had 10,000 friends or family, you would be far more likely to find another person who holds the same amount of passion for the topic as you.

Increased reach makes niche audiences far more viable

Presume we are in a time before the internet, and a local creator needed 500 interested people in order to make a viable project, if a local area gave access to 1,000 people, they'd need to make sure the topic resonated with at least 50% of the population. This meant that creators had to make topics generalised and broad enough, in order to get the minimum requirement of 500 people. If creators were too specific, they simply wouldn't attract enough people for the project to be viable.

Now, with the broad access of the internet giving us exposure to 4.66 billion people (Jan 2021), attracting 500 people to a project is easier than ever. You now only need to ensure the topic is interesting to 1 in every 9.3 million people, as opposed to one in every two. The internets access opens up a whole new world of viable projects that address fragmented needs and specific niches.

Fame shifts from generalised to specialised

Obviously the larger the need, the more the winners of those needs will take, but there are now literally millions more opportunities to make viable projects than ever before, even if the winner takes all effect is still in play.

This is why the access provided by the internet has blown up the amount of opportunities to win for very specific needs, or niche topics. With billions more people at our disposal, the micro audiences for specific needs now far exceed entire local audiences from the pre-internet age. Therefore, we're seeing specialisation create far more opportunities for niche fame than generalisation, as there are simply more areas than ever to build fame in.

Key takeouts for niche fame:

• It’s now harder, yet more common to win. The winner takes all approach may mean there's still very few winners for each need, however, it isn't all downside for the players looking to win, as a larger audience opens up, there are more needs audience needs, and with more needs comes more opportunities to win, or own a need. The winners still take all, but there are now far more places to take and win.

• Doubling down on strengths is critical. We go more into depth on how to discover opportunities when we discuss skill stacking, but you should look to build your own project by only doing what you're interested in, and spectacular at, if you don't, you won't be competitive enough to win and take all.

• A smaller audience isn't something to avoid. We go into the benefits of small audience monetisation when we discuss breadth and depth. However, this concept expands on this topic, showing how the maturity of the internet is bringing changes to monetisation, specifically for content creators.