Ask HN: Are there ways to exploit an incumbents network effects against them?

4 points·sharemywin··6 comments

There is this phenomenon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAatPPEaZDA

Specifically, online communities and communication tools tend to rot over time. Remember Paltalk? AOL Instant Messenger? Microsoft Messenger? ICQ? Skype? Lynq? Myspace? IRC? CU Seeme? WebEx?

Their replacements didn't win by being technologically better (you have to work hard to tell the difference between Facebook Messenger and AOL Instant Messenger) but because they deteriorated and people could get a fresh start elsewhere.

Your link leads to music. Did you mean to link something else?

No... It's very deliberate. Listen to the lyrics.

I could try explaining the problem Facebook is trying to escape by rebranding itself, but I couldn't do better than the lyrics of that song do!

User-base rot is something that I have expected to happen to Twitter but surprisingly it is still refreshing over time.

It only really matters with certain forms (e.g. chat). Otherwise, quality wins.

Very often new products launch using the incumbent's network as a launch pad. If you were starting, say, a football discussion site, you can pull people off Facebook/Reddit football groups, or some sports channel forum.

I think it really depends on the different types of network effects. Here is a presentation on the many different types of network effects.

https://future.a16z.com/all-about-network-effects/

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