I see the same pattern in many different areas: despite the fact that many people worked hard in their field, only a small part of the possibility space was explored, because they were all working on the same things.
Even the smartest, most resourceful people are surprisingly conservative when deciding what to work on. People who never dreamed of being pop are somehow drawn into working on pop (fashion) tasks.
If you want to try working on non-pop problems, one of the best places to look is in areas that people think are already fully explored: essay writing, Lisp, venture capital investments - you can find the general pattern here. If you can find a new approach in a large but long-ploughed field, the value of what you discover will be multiplied by its vast surface area.
The best defense against getting involved in pop music can be genuine love for what you do. Then you will continue to work on it, even if you make the same mistake as others, but do not attach importance to it.
Source: habr.com