The Challenges of Scaling an Online Platform
The given article talks about what may go haywire if the expansion of a network is not maintained properly over time. The article says that without any robust curation, an online platform may lose value as it grows over time. It argues that because the users create value in an online platform in most of the cases, it may lead to increased noise on the platform if the platform expands without any curation, thereby making the platform less effective.
The article mentions an example of Quora. It says that as Quora scales, less sophisticated are allowed into the system, which increases noise and results in swift decline in value of the current user. This results in a reverse feedback loop. This is because current users exit the platform due to decreasing quality, resulting in further decline in quality, which triggers other experts to leave as well. Therefore, a cycle like above can result in rapid degradation of value for an online platform. The article also mentioned Chat Roulette (a platform where you can video-chat with random people across the world), which failed miserably because there was no curation structure in place.
Apart from this, the article also commented on several other reasons like increase in abuse with scale, communities turning into echo chambers over the time, development of a hive mind-set, etc. In conclusion, we can say that while expanding an online platform, not only do we have to heed the network effects of expansion, but also look out for reverse network effects once the platform has scaled enough.
Link: https://platformed.info/scaling-challenges-online-platform/