We are currently living in a time where having a million followers on this platform is about the same as having a few hundred thousand on this one and a few thousand on this other one. This is “follower inflation”.
Google has recently announced a new feature for creators to have a creator page in their search engine, and their requirements for how many followers you must have to be eligible actually vary based on what platform your following is on. These platforms have leveraged the fact that most humans will sacrifice everything in their lives for social status by making pseudo-fame an easy-to-achieve goal for them.
Businesses now have to manage the risk of amateur reviewers and influencers who prioritize low-quality attention over substance trying to package and leverage inflated social status on platforms that sell this easy-fame like drugs to addicts.
In the early 2010’s, there were people who genuinely believed they had 500 “friends” because of popular social media platforms. In the 2020’s, there are people who genuinely believe they have tens of thousands of “followers”. This is obviously a growing psychological factor that will present new risks to serious business-owners.
This does come with opportunities for serious business-owners, however. The non-serious business owners who prop their businesses up with social status, coffee mixers, and low quality inner-circles will now see their businesses strained by this as having “followers” is losing its value the same way a dollar in USD has lost its value over the past several decades.
Christopher Woodward Research 