[bawolff]

I somewhat suspect by the time something is "popular" it is, almost by definition, oversaturated. Its sort of like weird investment strategies (e.g. always buy stocks on mondays, or whatever I dont actually know anything about stocks). Sure some of them may work originally, but unless i am extremely well connected, by the time i hear about it, everyone else knows too and the market has corrected for it.

Perhaps another metaphor is a gold rush. Even if there really is gold in those hills, if everyone knows there is, its probably already too late to go out and buy a shovel.

That said, i agree that there is plenty of survivorship and hindsight bias when it comes to any advice on how to be succesful.