This takeaway is pretty much the exact opposite of what’s going on. The algorithmic content chases mass appeal and large demographics. The long tail is niche independent artists doing their own thing and is, for them, commercially really small.
I'm not sure that's true. The short circuit between production and feedback (YouTube studio analytics, etc) are causing a lot of the small creators to optimize for whatever fluke that got them famous, and then replicate it again and again and again.
It feels like what happened is that the tools the big shots were using (test audiences etc) were democratized and now most of the long tail is playing the same game. Optimizing for some (local) lowest common denominator and treating their creations as a commodities and not as art.
