Evaluation of TikTok vs. Instagram Reels
Time to trot out <a href="http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/metcalfe.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/metcalfe.pdf</a> again.  (Yes, I am one of the co-authors.)<p>Multiple lines of evidence point to the basic value of a social network scaling like `O(n log(n))`.  So getting your first million users is hard.  But after you've got there, you don't have to be that much better than the competition to win.  The conclusion is that social networks should be a lot less sticky and durable than it looks like.<p>We concluded that back when MySpace was the dominant social network.  MySpace was overtaken by Friendster during the usual delays between a paper being submitted and published.  Not long after, Facebook became king of the hill.<p>And then..Facebook remained there.  In large part because they seem to have recognized their vulnerability, and so made a practice of buying new social networks like WhatsApp and Instagram before they grew up.  However I concluded years ago that it was only a question of time until someone dethroned them.<p>Maybe it will be TikTok.  Maybe TikTok gets shut down for political reasons.  But the existential threat to Meta's dominance is NOT going away.  Simply being king of the social media hill is not a sustainable moat.