The author has oversimplified complex world into something simple, as simple as possible, and wrong. It costs almost nothing for a music service to add a niche

The author has oversimplified complex world into something simple, as simple as possible, and wrong. It costs almost nothing for a music service to add a niche album. That’s why they do it: if you type a search query in a foreign language into US streaming account, you will find bands irrelevant to 99.995% of US users. This music may have less “groomed” metadata than the Short Tail, but there is little reason for a streaming service to not want it. The same could be true for movies, but it’s not. Maybe because production costs a lot regardless of the movie will be successful or not. Or because movies are for one-time consumption, unlike music. Also copyright owners try to steal subscribers from Netflix to their own app, which is easier to pull with several studios than with millions of artists. YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, OnlyFans are examples of alive and prospering Long Tail. I really doubt that Kindle store will ever start charging more for publishing books that target less than two dozens of readers. Whatever is going on, it is most definitely not as trivial as “living in the world of Short Tail”.