Why Having a Niche Business Is the Best Thing for My Mental Health

In digital media, bigger isn’t always better

I’ve worked on the internet for about six years now, which in most industries is a very short time, but in digital media terms, that’s long enough to witness tectonic shifts.

I’ve seen the golden age of social media distribution, where sharing a well-packaged article on Facebook meant an almost instant viral lift. I’ve seen the shift from programmatic to custom content as clicks and eyeballs are devalued by the day.

I’ve seen the video-as-panacea-to-all-problems and the ensuing retreat from video, which led to mass layoffs, editorial restructuring, and abandoning deeply held convictions à la “millennials don’t like reading.”

I’ve seen the rise of clickbait, the near-worldwide disdain for clickbait, and finally the slight adjusting of clickbait that keeps its core functions (scooping up as many eyeballs as possible) while avoiding the buzzwords that make readers want to light their laptop on fire (“one crazy thing,” “you won’t believe”).

In short, I’ve seen digital media grow rapidly from a total afterthought — when I started, we were lucky if big companies were putting even 2 percent of their total ad budgets in digital — to a still misunderstood and…