It's clear that the lives of many creative artists are being transformed by digital technology. But competing schools of thought cite the very same technology in support of strikingly different conclusions.

One group, for example, says the ability to widely distribute the best performers' products at low cost portends a world where even small differences in talent command huge differences in reward. That view is known as the "winner take all" theory.

In contrast, the "long tail" theory holds that the information revolution is letting sellers prosper even when their offerings appeal to only a small fraction of the market. This view foresees a golden age in which small-scale creative talent flourishes as never before.

Long-tail proponents often portray best-selling entertainment as lowest-common-denominator compromises whose only real advantage is lower cost made possible by large-scale distribution and sales. If technology makes scale less important, they argue, people will turn to the more idiosyncratic offerings that they really prefer. In principle, at least, this creates exciting new possibilities for small-scale sellers.

In practice, however, winner-take-all effects still appear to dominate. Long-tail proponents predict that the least-popular offerings should be capturing market share from the most popular. But as Anita Elberse, a professor at the Harvard Business School, recounts in her 2013 book "Blockbusters", the entertainment industry's experience has been the reverse. Digital song titles selling more than one million copies, for example, accounted for 15 percent of sales in 2011, up from 7 percent in 2007. The publishing and film industries experienced similar trends.

What's happening? One possibility is that today's tighter schedules have made people more reluctant to sift through the growing avalanche of options confronting them. Still, the growing market share of top sellers doesn't invalidate the promise of small-scale creative energy. Using big data, producers can now take aim at highly idiosyncratic buyers, and online searches help many such buyers find just the quirky offerings they're seeking.
Your 3-5 sentence summary:

Artists' lives have been changed by digital technology. This has created different schools of thought such as the "winner take all" theory, which claims that delivering high quality products at low cost will create a world where small differences in talent demand large differences in reward, and the "long tail" theory, who claims that digital technology is creating a small portion of sellers that the market will adapt to, promoting low-cost products. These two theories are effective in different realities. However, the existence of both proves the change that programming and technology has been showing in entertainment and in the market.

adefunkeadewole adefunkeadewole · Answer 2 · 2021-12-30T15:21:47+01:00

According to the passage, there are two main schools of thought.

The first is the Winner take all school of thought which is of the opinion that digital technology which provides the opportunity to widely distribute the best performers' product at low cost where little differences in talent could translate to huge rewards in the market.

The second is the long tail school of thought which posits that sellers are large beneficiaries even when they control a little market share.

Anita Elberses' 2013 book "Blockbuster" reveals that a reverse trend was observed in the entertainment industry which could also be said about the publishing and film industries.

It is worthy to note that although there is an exponential growth in available options, buyers can use online search to streamline the product they wish to buy.

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