1mo ago

What do you think might "break" the network effect of a platform?

For those unfamiliar with the network effect, I'm referring roughly to this (from Wikipedia):

Network effects are typically positive feedback systems, resulting in users deriving more and more value from a product as more users join the same network.

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You could probably look at Facebook for a case study in this.
Take away the ability to choose the sorting method for your feed
Basically never show you content from people that you follow and instead flood the feed with suggestions that go into adverts that go into more suggestions that go into more adverts
When it does finally show you something that you've chosen to follow using your own brain, ask "aRe yOU inTeReSteD in ThiS cOnTEnt?"
Make sure that every redesign is to the benefit of advertisers and not users
Facebook is still pretty widely used in my country. But even the people that use it say that it's gone to shit and complain about never actually seeing their friends' content anymore. But they still use it because there's nothing to replace it with yet. Not everyone enjoys forum style or microblogging style, so it is what it is. Keeping an eye on Friendica currently to start suggesting to people but in its current state, I'd say it's still not shiny and polished enough yet to get non tech enthusiasts to switch over.
- You could probably look at Facebook for a case study in this.
  How so? It's the most popular social media platform in the world, when counting active users (1).
  
  Wow that's more people than I thought. It definitely doesn't seem that way on the platform, seems more like a ghost town inhabited by bots and the elderly these days. Makes sense though, I'm pretty sure non-English users get more out of Facebook than Reddit or Twitter. I'd actually be interested in seeing a breakdown per country.
  So yeah, I guess that was a bad example then, thanks for the info. Although still, compared to its heyday when everyone was using it, including young trendy people, it's nosedived quite a bit. Anecdotally speaking.
- OBEY OVERLORD ZUCKERBURG. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE

I think generation gaps are the trigger. Kids don't want their parents on the same platform so they jump.

I need a little more context for your question. Are we talking about what might Google fuck up and break their stranglehold on people fully enmeshed in their ecosystem? Are you talking about what can a user do to de-Google themselves? Or are you thinking about a regulatory framework to prevent user capture? Or something I haven't thought of?

If they, say, stopped showing you posts from your friends in favor of showing you posts that made you angry to bait you into interacting. You know, hypothetically someone could do that.
- Depends how you interpret “break” I guess

For public fora: get the annoying ultra political people on it.
For more private platforms like whatsapp or discord: no idea. Better technology maybe? Discord replaced mumble for that reason.

if a bunch of bots joined people wouldnt like that much

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