"but the other possibility is that you tell the world but no one cares, which is likely the most probable outcome."
There's some truth to this. To take Hacker News as an example, there are many excellent projects posted in the 'Show HN' section that get no traction at all. And then there a few lucky ones that suddenly take-off. There's no "wisdom of the crowds" moment that propels one project to success over another because it's more worthy or excellent - it really is random in so many cases.
We think success = product excellence: how else could a product rise to a leading position in the market or to such pre-eminence unless it was better than the alternatives? But the mountain of successful products that range from mediocre to terrible shows that product excellence isn't always the key ingredient to a product's success.
Lest this all sounds too negative, I agree with the original article that documenting and pursuing your idea is absolutely worthwhile.
There's some truth to this. To take Hacker News as an example, there are many excellent projects posted in the 'Show HN' section that get no traction at all. And then there a few lucky ones that suddenly take-off. There's no "wisdom of the crowds" moment that propels one project to success over another because it's more worthy or excellent - it really is random in so many cases.
We think success = product excellence: how else could a product rise to a leading position in the market or to such pre-eminence unless it was better than the alternatives? But the mountain of successful products that range from mediocre to terrible shows that product excellence isn't always the key ingredient to a product's success.
Lest this all sounds too negative, I agree with the original article that documenting and pursuing your idea is absolutely worthwhile.