The "niche product for a small audience" business model is itself more popular at the edges of a technology cycle than in the middle. At the beginning of a technology cycle, the infrastructure is primitive, the markets are unknown, and so entrepreneurs have to look for small markets of passionate early-adopters that don't care about how primitive the technology is. At the end of the technology cycle, the really big use-cases have already been filled by giant companies that you can't realistically compete with, so you have to look for the smaller niches that aren't worth it for them to enter.
In the middle of the technology cycle, when the mainstream market is aware of the technology but sitting on the sidelines waiting for it to become useful and the infrastructure is just barely getting good enough that you can build high-quality consumer products, there's a mad land-grab to gobble up these giant markets before anyone else does. That's when coding ability is really crucial, because the infrastructure is not yet good enough that just anyone can build a product that's "good enough" for a mainstream market, but it's good enough that the really skilled, dedicated, and talented can.
In the middle of the technology cycle, when the mainstream market is aware of the technology but sitting on the sidelines waiting for it to become useful and the infrastructure is just barely getting good enough that you can build high-quality consumer products, there's a mad land-grab to gobble up these giant markets before anyone else does. That's when coding ability is really crucial, because the infrastructure is not yet good enough that just anyone can build a product that's "good enough" for a mainstream market, but it's good enough that the really skilled, dedicated, and talented can.