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.
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