Comment

Comment on Climate scientists flee Twitter as hostility surges

UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Continuing to use it only serves to further credentialize the platform

The vast majority of users don’t care whether the platform is credentialized or not.

Sort:hotnew top

unconfirmedsourcesDOTgov@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Respectfully, you were the one who pointed out the impact of the Network Effect.

The adoption of a product by an additional user can be broken into two effects: an increase in the value to all other users (total effect) and also the enhancement of other non-users’ motivation for using the product (marginal effect).

Thus, users don’t need to understand the credentials of the platform if the network effect is strong enough, but as users leave the network, the value (credentials) of the platform as a whole decreases.

Another way to think about it is that the amount Twitter “matters” is directly related to how much we collectively agree it matters. While not directly transferable, I’d suggest that Keynes’ Animal Spirits concept can help us to understand why this might be the case - prevailing attitudes towards a platform can have a profound impact on their value.

source