In chapter eight Anderson talks about the “law of vital few” which means that few own a lot of; and on the contrary, a lot of people own very little. This philosophy equally applies on marketing. Few industries control a lot of the content on, TV, radio, or Internet. However, Anderson also says that the “long tail” keeps growing because people want variety and quality of products; and companies by having these services, costumers will switch their taste for demand. The law of supply and demand changes, because the more variety consumers have, the more choices they will have to choose from, thus as a result, “the long tail” will grow even bigger. This is because niches for new products that that did not exist before are now available for people of different taste. Moreover, the distribution methods are easier than it used to be in the past making products available to costumers literally who live around the world.
Age and popularity is correlated to the purchasing of new products; this is another reason why “the long tail” keeps growing. Anderson says that new things sell better for various reasons: first, there is the age factor; adults between 18 and 32 tend to spend more on new products. However, there is also a demand for other products. Thus I make the connection based on the discussion we had last week in which you (professor) Meraz explained that in the marketing industry, everyone is looking for attention, and attention is really limited. Due to the fact that everyone wants to bee in the “hit” list, then everyone is fighting really hard to be in that spot. “Although there may be near infinite selection of all media, there is still a scarcity of human attention…” (Anderson, 146)
In the scale of economics, Anderson says that, in a capitalist society, this is the way the market works; whoever, comes up with the best marketing strategy, is more likely to create a hit in this diverse communication medium. Since it is so diverse he says companies try to create a product that fits for the majority of a homogeneous audience. “One size fits all” is what producers intend to create to bring people’s attention. Since there is a surplus or abundance of products, niches inevitably establish themselves. However, this is not seen as a bad thing, because in the long run, if a product is good, it will sell regardless of the new products coming to the market. Nonetheless, there are online a lot of “crappy” products because there are no filtering systems and contrary to what many people think, filtering is good for consumers because it helps consumers from buying a useless product. This is another reason why the long tail keeps growing, growing, because there are a lot of useless products online, and not necessarily to supply and demand.
