When Newbies Choose the Winners

In a rapidly growing ecosystem, it's often the newbies that decide who wins. Change often doesn't come from people changing their minds. Progress and change often happen because enough new entrants come in and do things differently, or make different choices about what tools to use and end up outnumbering those who were already there.

Take for example the popularity of programming languages. JavaScript has been the most popular programming language for 9 years in a row in Stack Overflow's developer survey.

Many old time software developers groaned and complained endlessly about JavaScript being an inadequate and bad language to develop software in. But JavaScript was easy to get started with. You could run JavaScript code right in your web browser without having to worry about figuring out how to install command line tools, compilers, etc. needed to get your code running in traditional languages like C++. Websites like Codecademy can teach you to code JavaScript right in the browser.

Although many experienced programmers complained endlessly, JavaScript is not only the dominant programming language for the web, but has now expanded to build projects typically served by other languages. You can write server code (Node.js) and desktop apps (Electron) in JavaScript. No matter how much the old guard complained about the real issues in what they saw as an inferior technology, the wave of new entrants that got their start in software with JavaScript soon outnumbered them and the success of the web over native apps only accelerated this ecosystem shift.

This dynamic shows up all over the place if you look for it. The old guard may not ever change their ways, but they're left behind by the vast amount of new entrants that slowly build the ecosystem for the future. You could almost call this phenomenon a form of natural selection, but I think that obscures the point a little bit and isn't quite the same dynamic.

This is why things that are easy to get started with in fast moving fields might win over a similar product with a more difficult learning curve. The product with a more difficult learning curve could provide a better experience once you know what you're doing, but still lose because newbies pick the one that is easier to start with.

In a world of exploding growth, attracting the newbies matters. So if you want your new thing to take off, make it easy as possible for someone to get started with your idea instead of someone else's.