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Tom Scott's 3-part series (on YouTube) a few years back on "How to be popular on the Internet"[0] has similar advice. There are higher-cost and lower-cost ideas, but given the amount of randomness inherent to getting popular, quantity tends to be the more important factor. He of course says it much better than I can.

[0] URL of first part here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0AMaW4XRCI

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It can also be really hard to judge quality (or at least popularity) a priori. I write for various publications that track traffic. Invariably I'll have posts I think are unique and interesting, which I really like. And they get middling views.

So it often makes sense to not tilt too far into finely-crafting a low volume of work. Then I'll slap something together a "5 things people get wrong when doing $X." It's not bad but it's pretty cookie cutter. And it will blow up.

Agreed. It's incredibly difficult to know what the audience wants, at least until you have a loyal community following (fans). Even then it's not perfect.

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