A few years ago it was very chic in the digital services world to talk about the 'long tail' effect, which essentially said that digital distribution would favor making more total money by offering a much broader inventory (from 'infinite' shelf space) while at the same time selling less of each item.

A very interesting article in the Harvard Business Review takes the opposite viewpoint, arguing that it's still a hit-driven business, and possibly even more so when you have a huge number of titles.

For product marketers, this is good news: you probably won't be replaced by a algorithm any time soon.