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The 1% rule of the internet is a rule of thumb that suggests that in any online community, only about 1% of the users actively create new content, while the remaining 99% primarily consume that content. This rule highlights the disparity between content creators and consumers, with a small fraction of users driving the majority of contributions.
The 1% rule is often accompanied by the 9% rule, which states that an additional 9% of users may engage by editing or commenting on content, but not creating original material.
This pattern relates to the 80-20 Rule (Pareto Principle), though with a more extreme distribution: while the 80/20 rule suggests that 20% of inputs create 80% of outputs, the 1% rule shows that in online communities, participation is even more concentrated, with just 1% doing the creating and the remaining 99% primarily consuming.
