I notice the same pattern across many different fields: despite many people working diligently in their domain, only a small part of the opportunity space has been explored because they all focused on the same issues.
Even the smartest, most creative people are surprisingly conservative when it comes to deciding what to work on. Individuals who never dreamed of being mainstream somehow find themselves drawn into working on trendy (fashionable) tasks.
If you want to try working on non-mainstream tasks, one of the best places to look is in areas that people believe are already fully explored: writing essays, Lisp, venture capital—there you might find a common pattern. If you can discover a new approach in a large but long-explored field, the value of what you uncover will be multiplied by its vast surface area.
The best defense against getting involved in mainstream work may be a sincere love for what you do. Then, you'll continue to pursue it even if you make the same mistakes as others, but you won't give them much significance.
Source: habr.com
