Homers Brother makes some great points. As does Nomercy448.

I have done a lot of piddling shooting at the range with .17HMR and 22 Mag. One could easily argue that these two particular cartridges fit no "necessary" niche. But, for now its a free world .... and having a myriad of choices when it comes to varmint type cartridges and "plinkers" is a good thing.

As far as staking a business on cartridge such as the .17WSM ... don't that is the situation at all. If it flops, no company associated with the cartridge is likely to fold.

As Homers Brother points out there have been (and surely will be) cartridges that never become popular in the shooting/hunting crowd despite being a pretty good round, such as the 280 Rem. and 257 Roberts. And some of will be at best extremely limited as far as a production run, such as the 358 Win. and 35 Whelen. And some will become more or less obsolete ..... such as factory ammo for my 6.5 mm Rem. Mag Rem 660 that I bought as a teen aged kid with about every $$$ I had saved friom a hot summer's work bailing hay and mucking dairy barns.