Music doesn't objectively get better just because more people listen to it; and yet, the authors' research appears to show that people's opinions of music is hugely influenced by what other people like. Recall their main result: They had one group of users who they didn't show any information about how often a song was downloaded, and then eight independent groups who were shown the download count of each song inside that group. "The song 'Lockdown,' by 52metro, for example, ranked 26th out of 48 in [the group not shown download counts]; yet it was the No. 1 song in one social-influence world, and 40th in another. Overall, a song in the Top 5 in [the group not shown counts] had only a 50 percent chance of finishing in the Top 5 of success." Their conclusion is that the reason why predicting the success of media products is shaky is that what's a success is hugely influenced by an unpredictable feedback process.
Thus, my question: Can we assume that Google's success is due in a large part not to anything that Google did, but to the (random) feedback process of people liking Google because they see other people liking Google?
Of course, one could argue that this is simply the truism that one needs luck as well as talent to succeed. But I come away from reading the article with the feeling that I've learned something that goes deeper than that, and I'm trying to figure out how to apply it to the tech world.