When 'Just Do It' Isn't Enough: The Rising Barrier to Entry

The days of amateurs making it big are over. You are either in it to win it from the beginning or you're in it to lose.

Photo by Jonathan Chng on Unsplash

In 1980, roughly .05% of high school basketball players made it to the NBA.

By 2010, only .03% would make it to the NBA.

Today, roughly only .02% of high school basketball players across the United States get drafted into the NBA.

The same child in across forty years, with the same talent, has a far less-likely chance of making it “big” in their industry due to a rising barrier to entry.

The exponential rise of skill inflation, international competition, early adoption, and pay-to-play culture are killing the world of the beginner.

Skill Inflation

I wrote briefly about the disappearance of hobbies recently in which I broke down why simple hobbies are disappearing—how many people just don’t seem to do anything extracurricular anymore.

The main point of that article was that complexification, capitalization, and more are causing your normal hobbies that people used to have (scrapbooking, table tennis, etc.) to die out.

This phenomenon is something different entirely.

Depending on who you talk to, this is Skill Inflation or The Red Queen Hypothesis. I like Skill Inflation.

Skill Inflation doesn’t just apply to sports or gaming, it applies to business and social media and most life as well.

Skill Inflation is simple: as time progresses competition naturally forces player 2 to get better than player 1 in order to best player 1, thus forcing new player 3 to get better than player 2, creating a cycle of besting elevating the skill floor of said game.

This is all well and good for players 1 through 100, but what about player 5,000? In the beginning, it might not have taken long for player 2 to best player 1, but as the cycle progressed, it becomes increasingly difficult to beat the top dog.

Look at Michael Jordan. Many fans of the game argue that Michael Jordan would be an average player in today’s NBA. I can’t say that I am in that boat, but the argument is surely interesting. Let’s be honest, if we stuck 1980s Michael Jordan in a current game, he would likely appear average or worse: not great. But that’s because he hasn’t had the opportunity to best his competition. His competition spent decades studying him and innovating off his unique moves, elevating the skill floor.

That’s why people think he wouldn’t do well in today’s game. Those who know ball know MJ had an insane work ethic which is what helped him work to become so dominant and he would likely be able to elevate himself to the requisite skill in today’s game as well.

Continuing on with the basketball analogy, I think back to my days of playing ball.

When I was in elementary, even middle school, we were terrible. I think back on how we thought we were Rajon Rondos or Kyrie Irvings but we weren’t. We were awful. A few of us were probably decent. But we sure weren’t stars that young.

Then I see a random video of elementary kids playing today and it blows my mind. The way they move, their celebrations, their skills are so far above and beyond what ANY of us had when we were younger. In the same vein, we were the talented kids compared to our parents’ generation and so forth.

I also think of video games. How Fortnite was relatively fun and exciting to play back when it first launched until gamers perfected building techniques and became so good at it that even skill-based matchmaking wouldn’t prevent you from going up against someone who was way too good at that game.

Adults used to be able to come home from work, play some CoD, casually carry the team off a few beers and move on with their life. That’s not really the case anymore unless you’re willing to sacrifice your 5-9 every single night.

Competitors are forced to rise to the challenge of their rivals… All others must rise up or fall behind.

International Competition and the Internet

Back in the day, your only competition were those you could see in front of you or those on TV. You didn’t have 8 billion competitors you had however many people lived in your city or played on your team.

Now, despite your industry—and you better believe it—your competition is in the billions. (Okay, yes I’m exaggerating a little bit but that number is up there!)

American high schoolers used to only compete against Americans until the Dream Team inspired a whole new wave of players that paved their way into the NBA.

Now, international players take 30% or so of NBA draft slots. And that hole is widening.

This is the same for your YouTube account, your favorite game, and everything else in which you think you want to succeed in. Millions out there are already doing it, doing it perfectly, and doing it better than you.

Stay tuned this article isn’t completely depressing.

Early Adoption

The skill floor has risen so much that kids are forced to develop their insane talent earlier than previous generations (or maybe their parents are forcing them). This is true for all areas of life.

Kids in high school used to come out of graduation with a few college credits in my day. Now they’re coming out with half their degree or three years completed.

Athletes are given one sport, chosen by parents or whatever they may have been naturally gifted at, and that one sport is their focus through their whole life. They live, eat, breathe that one thing. I’d be shocked to see a three-sport athlete make a professional team of one of those three sports in twenty years. That’s how much harder this will get.

Pay-To-Play

One more thing that’s rising the barrier to entry is the pay-to-play culture.

To start a hobby or try to succeed at something, there’s all these things you have to have. I wrote about this in my other article briefly.

In reality, these things don’t make you better. Your talent and hard work does.

However, what about recovery technology or training gear? If one family is able to afford all the training gear and recovery gear in the game and one can only afford a ball? Given they have equal talent, equal genetics, and equal drive/will, then the child with the tech and gear will likely go farther. (Don’t bring up the Rocky scene)

It’s as simple as this: I played tennis when I was younger. Our city does not have indoor courts and we live in the midwest. This means over half the days of the year are unplayable. Other cities in my state do have indoor courts. Because of that alone, we usually got our butts kicked by the teams from those cities.

In the business or social media world, I think of Gary Vee.

I keep hearing him repeat something in videos which I find interesting. He asks people how many pieces of content they posted yesterday, then he says he posted some absurd 300-some or more pieces of content across a bunch of different profiles the day before.

That’s insane. But he isn’t creating, drafting, posting those himself. He has a team.

This isn’t a knock on him—far from it. He’s earned his team. But that’s the Pay-to-Play in effect. He’s paying for a team that is keeping him ahead of his competition on social media and in business.

How are you, as a new user, alone in the world, likely with limited time, supposed to compete against the Gary Vee’s of the world?

For Your Consideration

I said keep reading because it’s not all depressing and so far I’ve lied.

But I’m not lying anymore when I say this: none of it matters.

If you work harder, put in more quality effort, and focus on your craft, you will succeed.

Because in all honesty, the kid with all the wealth and all the toys probably doesn’t have the drive and hunger as the kid who doesn’t.

More importantly, it’s never too late. Algorithms change all the time. Rules evolve. The game moves. Life is fluid.

And if you are just in it for the love of the game? More power to you.