Most Popular vs. Best

Popular is easy, because it's measurable. What has the most of whatever we're trying to measure? That's the most popular. "Best" is, admittedly, a subjective term.
It's kind of funny - as middle of the road as most people are, they do tend to extremes quite often. They either want to go to the most popular place - likely because they assume because it is popular it is best (or at least good), or they want to go to a very sparsely-populated place, for a variety of possible reasons (such as wanting to appear "different," or possibly wanting to discover a place before everyone knows about it, or maybe they just like being places where it isn't very crowded, among other possibilities). This is why "most popular" is such an important marketing tactic - people almost automatically associate most popular with best. Unfortunately, this is not always the case (and quite possibly, often not the case). As to the particular reason that brought this topic to mind, I was listening to ESPN Radio, and they mentioned that their podcast stream is the most popular sports podcast, or something to that effect. Now, many people I'm sure love ESPN. And for as big of a sports nut as I am, I use to be a huge ESPN fan. But honestly, outside of their baseball stuff, and some of their website stuff, I really can't stand them. Now, they very well may be the best, but they definitely aren't as good as they use to be. From humble beginnings, the originators of ESPN worked very hard to make it what it is today - however, what it was even a few short years ago, it is no more. They focus far too much on the non-stories, and not enough on the games. I guess the point of this whole rant is, that what is most popular can stay that way for quite some time, even if it is not the best. While word can travel fairly fast, it doesn't travel that fast. And obviously, depending on the industry, there may not be many competitors (making it difficult for others to overcome), or perhaps they serve a very large segment of the population (meaning it would take a pretty large shift for someone else to take over the mantle of most popular). So the next time you're thinking about the criteria you use to make decisions, just remember that what is most popular won't necessarily be the best choice.