The distinction between "people who participate" and "people who practice" is basically impossible to make, even just in video games.
Even the example he gave didn't really work: He says that the top 30% of players in Overwatch can reasonable be expected to want to win. Which I agree with (it's probably an underestimation) - but does this mean that the bottom 70% only "participate"? Because that would mean to get into the 95th percentile of "people who practice", you would have to be in the 1.5th percentile of Overwatch players.
Another layer of this problem exists when you look at people who play the game regularly, but don't play ranked. On average, those players are probably worse - but should they be included in the percentile?
Ultimately the percentile thing just doesn't make much sense, but I still think the overall message of the blog post, that most people could improve at something they do at a much faster rate if they were willing/able to really focus on improving themselves and less on external factors that they can't control, is absolutely true.
I read it differently. My takeaway (and I think he says as much in the article) was, by being bad among those who practice, you can be 95%ile among those who participate.
"I'm also not referring to 95%-ile among people who practice regularly. The "one weird trick" is that, for a lot of activities, being something like 10%-ile among people who practice can make you something like 90%-ile or 99%-ile among people who participate."
In this case, "participate" should include casuals, and "practice" should not. Thats not clear in TFA.
I have personally found this to be true in most arenas, esp casual adult sports or music or hobbies like drawing. At one time some in my gym (wrongly) thought I was a great boxer, but sure enough I was abysmal in competitions but stellar compared to gym goers. Among practicing boxers I was mediocre to bad, among participating non-fighters, I appeared much better. And after a very small amount of actual participation, all those gym goers were downright intimidating to non-participants / nonfighters. This is why I tell people to try out self defense classes. A little practice elevates you above 90% of those who might do violence against you in the world.
Oh, I might have misread that - in that case, I completely agree. But I guess "practice makes (almost) perfect!" isn't that controversial of an idea either, lol.
Even the example he gave didn't really work: He says that the top 30% of players in Overwatch can reasonable be expected to want to win. Which I agree with (it's probably an underestimation) - but does this mean that the bottom 70% only "participate"? Because that would mean to get into the 95th percentile of "people who practice", you would have to be in the 1.5th percentile of Overwatch players.
Another layer of this problem exists when you look at people who play the game regularly, but don't play ranked. On average, those players are probably worse - but should they be included in the percentile?
Ultimately the percentile thing just doesn't make much sense, but I still think the overall message of the blog post, that most people could improve at something they do at a much faster rate if they were willing/able to really focus on improving themselves and less on external factors that they can't control, is absolutely true.