If the masses had their say, we would have been burdened with a SOS(Sea of Sameness) all around us. Because the masses decide what you should create and we willy nilly fall for the temptation of conforming and complying. In the process, you end up giving up on the art that you actually want to create. This is more the norm than the exception.
That said, thankfully there are exceptions. Creators, artists, entrepreneurs, innovators who follow what their gut and heart and tells them. The ones who follow the story in their heads and are hell bent on bringing it to fruition. Irrespective of whether that it is high brow contrarian thinking. Critical mass is the forbidden fruit that most of us want to take a bite from.
The other way to look at it is in a zeitgeist where the Long Tail exists surely, there is a MVA(Minimum Viable Audience) for what you are going to create and you have the potential to delight and inspire the innovators and the early adopters who in turn will become the advocates to onboard the late adopters, the laggards etc.
So, if Oscar winner and composer A R Rahman is tempted by mass demand to compose songs for movies in Kollywood or Bollywood, his heart might be in launching a Kenny G kind of instrumental album or a Hans Zimmerman kind of soundtrack for a mega Hollywood production or produce his own version of the Sound of Music.
The voice in the head, the calling in the heart and the throb in the gut: once we are able to address that, bring that out in the form of your work or art that you are passionate about, you are free to pander to mass appeal. It need not be a Hobson’s choice. It is better to disappoint the mass to produce or create what you crave.