Network Effects Reversed as Social Network Increases
This article discuses the idea that social networks may be failing as the become larger and larger. It brings to light the idea that from the company’s stand point, a larger scale network creates larger value as more people open the possibility of bringing in more people. A growth that is aided by the rich get richer concept. But as the social networks get larger, on the user’s side the value may actually be dropping because as the network scale increases, the quality of interactions decrease as a result of factors like spam increasing. While initially the networks size may increase rapidly by the rich get richer effect, the “reverse network effect” may end the social network due to the side-effects of it’s volume, such as the network being unable to manage the volumes of content coming through leading to a failure in the “curation” and “personalization” of the content as well as possibly becoming inadvertently biased towards older users driving away new users. While reverse network effects can be avoided, a lack of ability to maintain quality as the network scales can lead to mass abandonment of the network.
Source:
http://www.wired.com/insights/2014/03/reverse-network-effects-todays-social-networks-can-fail-grow-larger/