Hacker News Reader

Comment by ikeyany | Hacker News Reader

Why do we adhere to the assumption that number of users is the ultimate metric of software success?

I would like to hear from devs who aren't interested in expanding for the sake of expanding, who still consider their apps to be very successful.

View on HN

For a messenging app, with classic network effects, it’s a very relevant metric.

With the network effect, if you are above a certain threshold then suddenly everybody will use your app. So the number of users is either low, or it is near the maximum number of users. This means that there is little information in the actual number of users.

That is true. Even outside of messaging apps, I very frequently see maximum growth as an inherently optimal metric to shoot for.

Anytime you have a network, the value is said to be proportional to the square of the number of connected users. This is known as Metcalfe's Law. Is it just another vanity measure? I have no clue.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law

Software success is different for the medium you are in B2B or B2C and then also the market. Chat market is pretty crowded so you're going for quantity.

If I have a B2B tool and it's fairly niche I might only need 100-200 clients but I charge them more :)

You should read Basecamp's material then.

Go to Indie Hackers or Basecamp SVN for such material.

Because users are the product you sell.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com