I think one of the best ways to understand network scaling (in the human sense) is the warrens and plazas metaphor [0] Warrens are venues with relatively small

I think one of the best ways to understand network scaling (in the human sense) is the warrens and plazas metaphor [0] Warrens are venues with relatively small size, that are relatively opaque to the outside. In principle, there is no scalability limit to warrens, as warrens scale horizontally. Plazas are venues with relatively large size that are relatively transparent to the outside. Plazas scale vertically, and so run into all sorts of size based scaling difficulties [1][2]. I'd expect networks like facebook which are very warren-y to have a much lower value growth curve relative to the number of nodes. While it's true that Facebook has created plaza-ish features like Pages, the core function of the network is explicitly warren-y, with a cap to the number of friends any profile can have. In contrast, a network like twitter should have a value growth curve much closer to Metcalf's law since it is almost completely plaza-ish. [0] https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/10/27/warrens-plazas-and-the-edge-of-legibility/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/10/27/warrens-plazas-and-the... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number [2] https://pjammer.livejournal.com/61330.html https://pjammer.livejournal.com/61330.html