In general I think this is why embracing tiered levels of payment/subscription seems to be working for a lot of people -- it captures the fan-intensity curve, providing a structure which is both fit to hyper-fans and casual fans alike, whatever the business model is. This seems to explain to me the rise of tiered models (Patreon, Kickstarter, ads-or-premium, freemium apps, etc), and why DLCs and sequels tend to be more popular in media.
Heuristics like these seem to work by exploiting general properties of this Pareto-y curve. Obviously people in real life don't necessarily follow curves... but as a total economics laywoman, it is intriguing to see how, similarly to a supply-demand curve for physical goods, a Zipfian curve of "fan intensity vs frequency" (as shown in the article) has sort of begun to show itself in various places.
Heuristics like these seem to work by exploiting general properties of this Pareto-y curve. Obviously people in real life don't necessarily follow curves... but as a total economics laywoman, it is intriguing to see how, similarly to a supply-demand curve for physical goods, a Zipfian curve of "fan intensity vs frequency" (as shown in the article) has sort of begun to show itself in various places.