Re:Ask HN: Is it true that any community that grows big enou...
by techsin101 on Friday May 13, 2022 @12:29AM
(#31363338)
I feel users don't have to be nefarious to have negative effect on the network. Example, you and your 4 friends in middle school are hanging out and having fun. One of your friends mom shows up and sit next to you guys. Suddenly you can't talk about 80% of the stuff you'd in absence of her, even though the mom isn't spamming or trolling. But yes as network grows it attracts marketers and spammers. But also kind of audiences matter too. A large network of only consisting hardware enthusiast is really useful. But a large network of general population would affect what posts make it to front page, how they get reported, and how slowly they get answered as they will drown against cat photos, political rage, and personal success stories. Even people with all specialized skills and relevant interest won't get to see those niche posts.
On reddit there is concept of subreddits. But regardless you are more likely to be distracted with other subreddits then interact with niche you are an expert in. why more coding questions are asked on stackoverflow than r/webdev
Metcalfe's Law says that the value of a network is proportional to the number of nodes (or people) in the network. That is, V = k * n^2, for some constant k.
But we now know that there's more to the story. That valuable network attracts users, but it also attracts abusers - spammers, propagandists, trolls. They don't add to the value of the network; they detract from it.
Here's where the handwaving starts. It is my perception that the proportion of abusers rises as the size of the network rises. That means that the total number of abusers rises faster than the number of users - perhaps as the square of the number of users.
Worse, those abusers do more damage than their numbers would indicate. It's not just that you have messages that should be ignored. It's also that you have to increase the level of mistrust for every message. I'm going to guess that the abusers do damage about in proportion to the square of their number (which is itself in proportion to the square of the number of users).
That leaves us with V = k * n^2 - c * n^4, to account for the damage from abuse.
It follows that one essential of larger networks is keeping c as low as possible. Otherwise abuse destroys a network.
Also note that, for any given k and c, there is a number of users beyond which the value of the network is negative.