at the same, if a new idea is unique and new enough, its own distribution can form organically 

 Most discovery is tied to word-concepts. So people love the X of Y like Stacker News is the Hacker News of Bitcoin mapping. This is the intuitive way to grow something - step into a demand category (it's how SEM/paid search operates). A few times, companies can define a category or a semantic word, but they often spend a ton to do so, and can lose out to second or third-follower companies.