Primaries in US Elections and Information Cascades
Despite representing a mere 1.37% of the total U.S. population, voters in Iowa and New Hampshire hold substantial weight in nominating presidential candidates. The reason for this phenomenon is due to the states’ early placement in the primary schedule and the effect such early victories have on voters in the remaining states. Every four years, […]
Uber’s Network Effects
https://www.nfx.com/post/the-network-effects-map-nfx-case-study-uber/ Network effects play a role in many modern business models, especially those that rely heavily on technology or media. The attached article discusses how Uber, the leader in mobile ride-hailing, relies on network effects in multiple ways. These network effects are not only applicable to the buyers (riders), but also to the sellers (drivers). […]
Diffusion in Parler Social Networking App
Parler is a microblogging and social networking app launched in 2018. The platform is promoted as “the world’s premier free speech platform” and rose to prominence during the 2020 US presidential election, as Donald Trump and other conservative figures were banned from Twitter and Facebook for using harmful language. As a result, Parler has a […]
How Information Cascades Can Ruin Someone’s Life
Hearing that someone is “cancelled” is something that is a part of common everyday conversations. In other words, they are culturally blocked from having a prominent public platform or career. Cancel culture is a new phenomenon that has changed the way we interact with each other and has invoked fear in people from voicing their […]
Information Cascades and the movie “Draft Day”
“Draft Day “is a movie about the Cleveland Browns General Manager Sonny Weaver Jr. and the dealings which occur on the day of the NFL Draft. Every year the NFL draft occurs and the highest acclaimed college football athletes get drafted to one of the 32 professional NFL teams. The order of the draft is […]
Democracy Dies in Darkness — Collective Action and Authoritarian States
Chapter 19 of the reading discusses a typical example of the collective action problem: a large scale demonstration against a repressive government could effectively undermine its legitimacy. However, the number of protesters planning to attend the demonstration is unknown and a weak demonstration could cause every protesters get arrested, should the protesters show up at […]
Why almost no one is making a living on YouTube
The rich get richer phenomenon, also known as the preferential attachment phenomenon, has been considered a fundamental property of networks. In this, the nodes of a network gain connections in proportion to their already existing connections. Real world data often does follow power law distributions instead of the bell curve. The article cited takes us […]
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