Re:Why Facebook Keeps Beating Every Rival: It’s the Network
by ookdatnog on Thursday April 20, 2017 @03:54PM
(#14160240)
I like the free market and I think letting the free market do its thing is a good default solution to a wide range of problems.
I don't have faith that the free market will solve any problem well if we just wait long enough though. Nor do I believe that it's wise to just sit around and refuse to fight injustice because the problem might solve itself out in 50 years.
In this specific case, I think the network effect of social networks (ie it only makes sense to use a given social network if the people you want to communicate with use it as well) is so strong that the unregulated free market is not a good model to solve that problem.
I don't have faith that the free market will solve any problem well if we just wait long enough though. Nor do I believe that it's wise to just sit around and refuse to fight injustice because the problem might solve itself out in 50 years.
In this specific case, I think the network effect of social networks (ie it only makes sense to use a given social network if the people you want to communicate with use it as well) is so strong that the unregulated free market is not a good model to solve that problem.