the.com/catalog depth
the difference between a store and a warehouse with a search bar.
means the total volume and variety of items or content a platform offers, beyond just the hits on the homepage.
from emerged from streaming and retail business jargon in the 2000s, when companies realized their back-catalog of old, obscure, or niche items quietly drove more revenue than the new releases everyone marketed.
long tail theorychris anderson coined it watching amazon sell obscure books
netflix betlicensed thousands of old shows nobody was hyping
spotify mathmost streams come from songs older than a year
for instance
spotify back catalog — over 100 million tracks, most never charted anywhere
amazon warehouse sku count — hundreds of millions of items, most sell once a year
criterion collection — 1000+ curated films prized precisely for obscurity
steam store — 50000+ games, 90 percent invisible unless you dig