Why Truly Valuable Information Rarely Reaches Ordinary People

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In today’s world, we all have dozens of apps on our phones and follow countless public accounts. We’re bombarded with a flood of information every day. Yet, very little of it genuinely delivers real value to ordinary people. Faced with this overload, we often feel a sense of emptiness—like asking, "Where are the truly valuable things?"

High-value information isn’t nonexistent. It just seems to have legs of its own, deliberately bypassing ordinary people. It doesn’t vanish into thin air; rather, it’s blocked by invisible barriers—misunderstood, rejected, filtered out layer by layer—until it dissipates before it ever reaches them.

It’s not that the information is avoiding you. It’s that the gravity of reality is too strong, pinning ordinary people firmly to the shallow shores of awareness.

Take Xiao Zhang, a food delivery rider, for example.
He spends 12 hours a day on his electric scooter, his phone filled with order-grabbing apps. The algorithms constantly push him "peak-hour surge orders" or "delivery hacks," but they won’t tell him what kind of small business might offer a better future, or which vocational training could suit him.

It’s not that no one shares this kind of information. If you search carefully, you can find ideas for starting your own small venture.
But when he drags himself back to his 100-square-foot rented room after a long day, his mind is occupied only by tomorrow’s rent and his child’s school fees back home.
The pressure to survive feels like a boulder, crushing his neck and keeping his eyes fixed on the ground.

A deeper trap lies in the comforting embrace of "pacifier entertainment."
After a grueling day, all you want is to crash on the couch. You open your phone: cute pets, dancing influencers, celebrity gossip, addictive mini-dramas—platforms weave intricate webs of distraction designed by precise algorithms.
This content is like brightly colored candy, satisfying the brain’s craving for instant gratification.

Meanwhile, truly valuable information—like a deep-dive industry analysis, a course on foundational logic, skills for dropshipping, cross-border e-commerce, content creation, or low-cost entrepreneurship—is like a dish that requires slow, mindful chewing. The brain instinctively filters it out.

My cousin is stuck in exactly this cycle. He complains about his exhausting job: his wife stays home with their two kids, so he’s supporting a family of four alone, plus a mortgage and car payments. His industry is oversaturated, and his income’s stagnating—but he’s too afraid to quit.
He’s working two jobs, his schedule packed. He wants to break free but has no energy left to learn new skills.

Years in sales have sharpened his eloquence and emotional intelligence. He understands marketing and has real-world experience. I’ve suggested he try content creation, but as he puts it: "By the time I get home, I’m completely drained. All I can do is lie down and scroll through short videos."

When algorithms know how to please you better than you do yourself, staying clear-headed becomes the hardest thing.

As anthropologist Xiang Biao warned: We’re living under a "tyranny of the immediate"—the pursuit of instant gratification is killing our capacity for deep thought.

A more subtle barrier is the "information bubble" surrounding ordinary people.
When homemakers gather, talk revolves around husbands and kids. At a blue-collar dinner table, conversations fixate on wages, prices, and neighborhood gossip. Meanwhile, business elites exchange insights on policy shifts or investment opportunities.
This isn’t about who’s "better." It’s about environment shaping the information we encounter daily.

You won’t find assembly line workers passionately debating angel investment terms after their shift—just as a fund manager won’t get stock tips from the local market vendor.

So, as I often say in my writing: people are products of their environment.

Another observation—perhaps you’ve felt it too—is that those from less privileged backgrounds (no disrespect intended; my own parents were working-class) often react to unfamiliar opportunities with immediate suspicion: "Someone’s trying to scam me" or "They’re just out to exploit me."
It’s as if the world feels full of predators.

And honestly, it’s understandable. With limited exposure to commercial logic, their guard goes up as a form of self-protection. Presuming deception is safer than blind trust.
But this shield also blocks opportunity.

Let me share a positive example. My cousin, a mother of two, once joined a "mom’s group" where members mostly swapped discount codes and parenting worries.
Then someone shared a mini-program: "Register as a member, open your own store, and earn commissions by sharing products you love—no inventory needed. Just sell to your circle."
Today, her side hustle brings in an extra $200–$300 monthly. It’s not life-changing, but it covers groceries.
Had she dismissed it as a scam at first glance, that door would’ve stayed shut.

Are ordinary people doomed to be second-class citizens in the information age? Breaking free is hard—but impossible if you never try:

1.Set alarms to block out 30 minutes daily for skill-building: video editing, mobile photography, content creation. Pair it with your interests to explore low-cost ventures.
Remember: Start small. Avoid big investments. Anything asking for thousands upfront? Triple-check it.

2.Cross boundaries deliberately. Step out of your comfort zone:

3.Xiao Zhang (delivery rider): Read about business models or marketing 1 hour/week.

4.Xiao Wang (designer): Skip short videos. Attend offline startup meetups. Join entrepreneurial circles.

High-value information never vanished—it’s just buried like gold in layers of sand. Sometimes you pay for it: learn from those who’ve already succeeded. It shortcuts the trial-and-error grind. As the saying goes: "Walk alone, and you’ll move fast. Walk together, and you’ll go far."
But in my experience? Walking alone isn’t always fast—you might wander lost for miles.

Ordinary people get swept up by survival, tamed by algorithms, boxed in by their circles. But once we see these chains, we can start breaking them. Act now:

Dump empty dopamine hits (mindless scrolling).

Step out of stagnant social bubbles.

Learn online. Learn from masters.
Carve your own irrigation channel through the flood of information.

P.S. Core ideas inspired by the book Scarcity. Worth a read—if you find the time.