In Kelly's own account, owning the fan relationship cuts how many fans you need; the work of serving them is what usually fails.

The claim

Kevin Kelly's "1,000 True Fans" treats a direct relationship as a multiplier, not a precondition: selling through intermediaries raises the number of fans a creator needs "fast, but not infinitely", and Kelly uses both routes himself. His own survey a month after the essay found very few artists living wholly on direct true fans, mostly sellers of high-priced work, because finding and servicing fans is itself a job. Owning the customer relationship lowers how many fans a creator needs; the labour of servicing them is what most often stops it working.