3 ms·

You know, not everything is the next Google. Network effects and the size of the userbase are very important.

• user24 16y ago
  I'm not saying it's going to be the next google. I'm not even saying it'll be a success. But the arguments in the article simply don't support the conclusion. The claims made in the article are: 1) Diaspora will fail because facebook's really big. 2) Diaspora will fail because Zuck's invested in it. 3) Diaspora will fail because there's a lot of competition. 4) Diaspora will fail because facebook's well funded. 5) Diaspora will fail because it hasn't launched yet. 6) Diaspora will fail because privacy doesn't matter to users. Apart from the last one, I don't think any of those have any force at all. Lots of successful companies have launched against strong, well funded competitors in a crowded marketplace and been massively sucessful. And sure, lots have failed too. But the arguments are way too broad to have any meaning for the specific Diaspora/Facebook debate. You can apply them just as well to any startup you care to mention. The only thing of any substance in the article is claim 6, the rest is too generic to matter. What's even worse, is that a year down the line when Diaspora does fail, this hack'll say "Yeah I predicted that". No, you just pointed out some general reasons why startups have a tough time. Diaspora will probably fail. But not for any of the reasons given in the article. Number 6 will possibly have an impact. The author only devotes 6 lines of text to that, the rest you could literally copy and paste for every startup and just change the names and numbers.