I think this speaks to a general principle: you can democratize access to consumer attention (whether that's in editorializing, photography, music, what have yo

I think this speaks to a general principle: you can democratize access to consumer attention (whether that's in editorializing, photography, music, what have you) but doing so forms more of a truly free market. And truly free markets distort themselves, because people seek multiple things when producing stuff for their peers. If there are exploits, they'll tend to win… and there are always exploits. We're not truly rational in the manner of computers (to the extent even they can be said to be rational…) The only way to really avoid this is to define other kinds of values or purposes, and then stubbornly pursue those instead of attention. Which makes you rather a pariah in the modern internet economy… it's pretty weird. There is a 'market' for this, too, though. It's just more of a niche market, but if you signal to that smaller market it does hear. I don't do this as much in art but I do it in other areas, and it's real. (meaning: I don't really HAVE any audience in art, but there are places where I do) To do this in photography, define something you want to pursue outside of just 'audience response writ large', and refuse to pay attention to anything else: in particular, be able to identify when there's an audience demand that's steering you away from the value you're pursuing, and be prepared to reject the sort of audience that's asking you to go against your own wishes. By rejecting one audience you're signaling to another (often this happens quietly and you only find out about it later, or not at all, where the rejected ones WILL be loud and offended about it: be brave) That will work, so long as you're able to define something about the art that drives you, that's more than 'people seem to like it'. Your job is to be telling the AUDIENCE what to like, knowing full well that lots of them will disagree and be mad :)