While there are more young people entering the field, the artists who garner most of the focus are older, in part because the comics who continue to command the biggest Netflix paydays became famous before the culture fragmented into niches. The average age of the 10 highest paid comics on Forbes’s list this year is nearly 50; it’s no surprise that jokes about divorce (Chris Rock), parenthood (Jim Gaffigan) and keeping up with the times (Dave Chappelle) are well-represented. It’s hard for an emerging comic to make a splash in this changed landscape, but it might be even more difficult these days for a respected midlevel performer to make the leap to culture-shifting fame. Freshly minted stars are just not as big as they once were. Many bold experimentalists like Kate Berlant and Rory Scovel have been doing brilliant work for years but have yet to find a vehicle that matches their talents and catapults them to wider recognition.

Early excitement about Twitter as a new form for comedy has waned, while other outlets like the short-video service Vine have vanished. Comedy podcasts began often as labors of love but increasingly feel like dutiful necessities for the young and careerist. And as the major institutions have outgrown their anti-establishment roots, many have shown a resistance to change. Long after becoming a bustling comedy factory with a huge number of students, the Upright Citizens Brigade remains doggedly committed to not paying its onstage talent, while, in perhaps another sign of the business challenges today, recently raising ticket prices for the second time this year. There’s a glut of late-night TV shows, each trying to outdo the other with similarly biting anti-Trump material. And despite years of conversations about systemic sexism in comedy, New York’s major clubs appear to have made little effort to work toward gender parity in their lineups.

Much of comedy right now feels stagnant, dominated by the same handful of stars with a flood of talented young performers struggling to break out. When’s the last time a new stand-up superstar came along and changed the game? Will Ali Wong’s special next year make a difference?

After two booms, comedy has become such a staple of so many people’s pop culture diets that it’s not going to suddenly dry up. But it could benefit from the disruptive spirit that sparked the second boom.