Expecting traction to happen on its own.

"If I keep creating good content on <choose your own platform>, my followers/fans will grow on their own and one day it will sustain me" is as incorrect a statement as "If we keep making a good product, it will sell on its own."

It almost never happens that way.

People buy stuff not just because it is good, but because someone intentionally put effort in creating traction. Creating traction requires empathising with the smallest viable audience and then creating the conditions where they get the affiliation and status they are looking for.

Expecting traction to happen on its own or through an algorithm is leaving the success of your work dependent on the odds of winning the lottery.

Steve Jobs made excellent products but it was the show he used to put up that made Apple successful. That "putting on the show" was part of the design. It doesn't work without it.