Lottery
Every couple of years, I decide that I should try my luck at the lottery, and I buy a ticket. I always buy the cheapest lottery ticket. I never win, except once where I spent $2.50 for my ticket and I won! I was elated, amazed, finally I won. I went to cash it in, you know how much I won? $1. Yep, one dollar. I spend two dollars and fifty cents to win a dollar.
Canada has 33 million people. The government lotteries run on Wednesday and on Saturdays. The government sells around 25 million tickets on the Wednesday lotteries and around 45 million lottery tickets on the Saturdays, and that's if the big prize is under $10 million. Over the $10 million mark, they almost double the number of lottery tickets sold. Some lucky dog has to win. 1 chance in 14 million1? Even a blind squirrel finds acorns now and then.
The Internet and photography is like a lottery, your website may be picked. You see some photographer like The Strobist become wildly successful and many photographers try to copy it. It doesn't work, their photo website stays anonymous. Copying David Hobby will get you nowhere. He got lucky! He won the Internet photo lottery. Do you know how many Strobist copycats there are on the Internet, by the hundreds, and they are still in oblivion.
So is there any hope of becoming big on the Internet and photography? Yes, keep on plugging. Use SEO, see: Search Engine Optimization and also SEO Kit For Photographers from PhotoShelter.
1 The number of different ticket combinations can be determined by using: 49C6 = 13,983,816, it's the number of combinations, not permutations. ↑