> The number of readers dwarfs the number of writers.

That's a great observation!

'Literacy' is defined as the ability to both read and write. People as a rule can write, even if it isn't a novel worth publishing they do have the ability to encode a text on a piece of paper. It's a matter of quality rather than ability (at least, in most developed countries, though even there there are still people who can not read or write).

So think that you could fine-tune that observation to 'there is a limited number of people that provide most of the writings'. Observing for instance Wikipedia or any bookstore would seem to confirm that. If you take HN as your sample base then there too it holds true. If this goes for one of our oldest technologies it should not be surprising that on a forum dedicated to creating businesses and writing the ability to both read and write are taken for granted. But they shouldn't be.

The same goes for any other tech: the number of people using electronics dwarfs the number of circuit designers, the number of people using buildings dwarfs architects and so on, all the way down to food consumption and farmers or fishers.

Effectively this says: 'we tend to specialize' because specialization allows each to do what they are best at. Heinlein's universal person ('specialization is for insects') is an outlier, not the norm, and probably sucks at most of the things they claim to have ability for.