I think this is ignoring that something that pops up in the Long Tail can go viral and become a block buster.
One example from the days of the origin of the Long Tail was Bollywood movies.
There aren't enough fans of Bollywood in one geographic location to warrant dedicating a whole theater to a showing. (I'm ignoring regional pockets, of course).
However, if a movie gets lot of views online, that might boost it up the tail into the attention of more casual fans. In turn, they might boost-like it into more mainstream etc.
That was much more difficult in the past where even if there was a lot of word of mouth praise, you still had the geographic distances.
One example from the days of the origin of the Long Tail was Bollywood movies.
There aren't enough fans of Bollywood in one geographic location to warrant dedicating a whole theater to a showing. (I'm ignoring regional pockets, of course).
However, if a movie gets lot of views online, that might boost it up the tail into the attention of more casual fans. In turn, they might boost-like it into more mainstream etc.
That was much more difficult in the past where even if there was a lot of word of mouth praise, you still had the geographic distances.