The trend certainly will continue, if only because that's how it's always worked - even before twitter, or even the internet. TV, radio, newspapers, publishers,

The trend certainly will continue, if only because that's how it's always worked - even before twitter, or even the internet. TV, radio, newspapers, publishers, etc. have always had this power - you had to market yourself to enough people for someone with influence in one of the aforementioned medias to consider you worthy and propel you to visibility and success. One might even say that the current state of affairs, or trend, is preferable because it's not some small group of people acting as gatekeepers, but instead it's "the hivemind" as you've put it.