Other people's behaviour acts as a cue for what to do, buy, or believe.
More quotesRestaurant A gets the first diner by chance. The second diner sees proof. The third sees a trend. By the tenth, somebody is explaining A’s superior ambience while equally good Restaurant B resembles a tax investigation. Success writes very flattering biographies of itself.
The lead may be deserved now without having been deserved at the beginning. Early users create reviews, familiarity, compatible products and people who can help the next user. Adoption manufactures reasons for more adoption. History gets mistaken for essence. The reverse is commercially brutal. A good marketplace seller with no transactions looks risky because they have no transactions. An unfamiliar tool loses because nobody nearby knows it; then its lack of users is cited as evidence that nobody wants it. Quality is waiting for a fair trial while popularity has already selected the jury.
This also corrupts analysis. We inspect the winner’s features because the winner is available to inspect, then label those features causes. The vanished alternatives leave no case studies. Survivorship bias then delivers the keynote about product-market fit. Faking the queue is fraudulent and usually smells of cardboard. The honest job is to concentrate real early experience: a narrow launch, a proper pilot, independent reviews, a first cohort beginning together. Make it safe for somebody to be first and useful for them to bring the second.
Current popularity proves that people currently see other people choosing you. It cannot show which early coin landed heads, which rival was overlooked or how much of the supposed genius arrived after the queue formed. That uncertainty belongs in the case study.