The one percent aren't as influential as you think.Not wrong. Just downstream.
For twenty years we planned around 1:9:90. One percent create, nine engage, ninety watch. It was a sound model for a world where reach came from followers and ideas travelled through relationships.
That world has changed. Distribution no longer follows the people you know; it follows what the system predicts you want. The expectation was that this would spread influence more widely.
It appears to have done the opposite. Creator earnings follow a power law across every major platform. Authority is concentrating too: about one in five US adults now regularly gets news from individual news influencers rather than institutions.
Which suggests the model needs a new first digit. Inside the famous one percent sits a tenth of it. That thousandth doesn't behave like creators. It behaves like institutions - setting the agenda rather than competing within it.
Everyone else, including most of the one percent, is working downstream of them.
Most of us think we're the audience. We're closer to the fuel.
One in a thousand shapes what the rest of us see, do, and become.
Objektive Working Papers (2026). The Per Mille Effect. Working Paper No. 6, 2026 edition. https://permilleeffect.com
Markdown and PDF editions forthcoming.