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by CM30
2338 days ago
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This is a double edged sword. On the one hand, you're right, a more mainstream topic does have a larger potential audience, and if your topic is one few people care about, you're probably gonna get a lot less traffic compared to one with a broader audience. At the same time however, the broader the audience, the harder it usually is compete and make a name for yourself in a niche. There are hundreds if not thousands of people and sites writing about JavaScript frameworks, Docker, etc, and your work will likely get a lot less attention than theirs will. So while the potential audience is there, the likelihood of you getting said audience is extremely low. It's like on YouTube with popular games. Sure, a lot of people might watch videos about Minecraft or Fortnite or whatever the kids play nowadays, but there are also thousands of other people also making videos about them, and yours can easily get buried in the avalanche of results there. Hence unless you've already got a one in a million advantage (like real world fame), it's very hard to compete. Focusing on something less popular can help you build a smaller but more focused audience, and you do pretty well off being 'that one guy' who covers said obscure topic. You can then maybe branch out and gradually use your popularity in said smaller field as the jumping off point for popularity in the larger one. |
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If you look at HN, you will see articles about javascript popping up almost every day. They all get tens of thousands of views, they're not competing for readership.
If you're considering a niche subject instead, the article would not get enough upvotes to reach the frontpage, and it wouldn't get any views at all. There might be hundreds of people aware of that topic (and thousands who would be curious enough to read if it were front page) but it doesn't have enough audience to reach a critical mass of upvotes, so it simply doesn't exist.
P.S. The Youtube comparison is misplaced IMO. Writing books (blog articles) is trivial in comparison to making Hollywood videos (Youtube).