How Do Popular Products Become Addictive Hits?

TL;DR

Popular products become hits by combining something new with recognizable patterns, then securing enough distribution to reach a commercially viable audience. Engagement can become addiction when repeated use causes harm or negative consequences, especially when media removes natural stopping cues through autoplay-like continuity, cliffhangers, sequels, adaptations, reboots, and immersive merchandise ecosystems.

Transcript

Hi, and welcome to the A16Z podcast. I'm Hannah, and today we're talking with the authors of two new books about popularity and addiction, and really why it is that we like the things we like, with Derek Thompson, author of Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction, and Adam Alter, author of Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive ... Read More

Key Insights

• Popularity is often the support of a commercially viable minority, not approval from most people. A book selling one million copies still goes unpurchased by 99% of the country, while a show watched by 10 million households remains unseen by 90% of households.
• Modern hits are increasingly cult-like because abundant markets divide audiences among many available choices. A work can inspire intense devotion and achieve commercial significance without approaching majority consumption, making culture resemble overlapping communities of strongly committed minority audiences.
• The appeal of new products is often a combination of familiarity and surprise. People tend to accept novel songs, stories, and products more readily when those experiences contain recognizable patterns that make the unfamiliar material easier and more satisfying to process.
• The mere exposure effect is a psychological tendency to prefer a stimulus after encountering it. Initial novelty can feel unsettling, but exposure teaches people how to interpret an experience, reduces processing difficulty, and increases the likelihood that they will choose it again.
• Distribution is a decisive force in cultural success because audiences cannot develop familiarity without an initial encounter. Control over publishing, music, film, or television channels therefore provides control over which works people see, hear, watch, and potentially learn to enjoy.
• Addiction is defined by harm or negative consequences, not simply repeated enjoyment. Listening to an earworm many times may be harmless, while a compulsive experience becomes addictive when continued engagement damages a person's life despite the pleasure or attraction it provides.
• Stopping rules are natural endpoints that help people disengage from media. Chapters, completed songs, finished newspapers, and week-long waits between episodes once supplied these boundaries, while contemporary distribution and storytelling increasingly connect one experience immediately to the next.
• Deliberately stopping before a cliffhanger can interrupt compulsive viewing. Resuming with the final minutes of the previous episode allows the viewer to experience both the cliffhanger and its resolution within one session, reducing the unresolved narrative pull toward another episode.

Questions & Answers

Q: What does popularity mean in an age of abundant media?

Popularity does not necessarily mean being liked by most people. In an abundant media market, a hit can be a work adored by a commercially viable minority. A book that sells one million copies remains unpurchased by 99% of the country, and a show watched by 10 million households remains unseen by 90% of households, yet both can qualify as major successes.

Q: Why do people prefer products that feel familiar?

Familiar products are easier to understand and process because previous exposure has already taught people how to interpret them. The mere exposure effect describes how encountering a stimulus can quietly increase preference for it. Completely new experiences may feel uncertain or threatening, but repeated contact reduces that discomfort and can make later consumption feel easier, safer, and more pleasurable.

Q: How do successful products combine novelty and familiarity?

Successful new products often present recognizable ideas in an unexpected form. Novelty matters because a hit is, by definition, a new offering, but pure unfamiliarity can repel audiences. Familiar structures, sounds, stories, or concepts give people an accessible point of entry, while surprise supplies enough freshness to distinguish the product from experiences they already know.

Q: Why is distribution important for creating cultural hits?

Distribution creates the initial exposure that allows familiarity and preference to develop. Audiences often explain favorite songs or movies through their inherent qualities, but those works first had to reach them. Owners of publishing, music, movie, or television channels influence which options people encounter, so cultural competition is partly a struggle for control over access and attention.

Q: When does repeated engagement become addiction?

Repeated engagement becomes addiction when it produces harm, ruin, or other negative consequences. Wanting to hear a song repeatedly or returning often to an enjoyable product is not inherently harmful and therefore does not automatically qualify as addiction. The important distinction is whether the compulsion damages a person's life while still creating a strong urge to continue the behavior.

Q: How does digital media encourage compulsive consumption?

Digital media encourages compulsive consumption by weakening or removing natural stopping rules. Books have chapters, songs end, newspapers finish, and traditional television once required viewers to wait a week for another episode. Contemporary products can move directly into additional content, while carefully placed cliffhangers sustain unresolved interest and make disengagement more difficult after the initial experience.

Q: How can viewers reduce the pull of television cliffhangers?

Viewers can stop watching about five minutes before an episode ends, before its cliffhanger appears. During the next session, they begin with those remaining minutes and continue until five minutes before the following ending. This arrangement places a cliffhanger and its resolution within the same viewing session, short-circuiting the unresolved narrative momentum designed to pull viewers immediately onward.

Q: How has media abundance changed the definition of a hit?

Media abundance has lowered the audience threshold required for some works to count as hits. The number of books published worldwide grew by a factor of seven since the 1980s, while North American movies and original scripted television shows also grew by a factor of seven from their respective reference periods. With audiences divided across more choices, commercial significance can require fewer viewers or buyers.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• Popularity in an abundant cultural market rarely means approval from a majority. A book selling one million copies or a show reaching 10 million households can be a major commercial hit while remaining unseen by most people. Modern hits therefore resemble cult successes, intensely valued by commercially meaningful minorities rather than universally embraced products.

• People are attracted to products that balance novelty with familiarity. The mere exposure effect makes previously encountered stimuli easier and more pleasant to process, while completely unfamiliar experiences can feel threatening. Distribution determines which unfamiliar works receive that crucial first exposure, giving the owners of cultural channels substantial influence over what audiences encounter and eventually prefer.

• Digital media encourages continued engagement by removing the stopping rules that once defined chapters, songs, newspapers, and weekly television episodes. Cliffhangers, immediate continuation, sequels, adaptations, reboots, and merchandise extend experiences beyond traditional endings. Consumers can resist this pull by deliberately stopping before a cliffhanger and resuming shortly before an episode ends.