What you are describing is called "compounding" in Economics, but that's not a network effect. You might want to read [0] Microsoft has the money to to host an

What you are describing is called "compounding" in Economics, but that's not a network effect. You might want to read [0] Microsoft has the money to to host and curate a large search index, funded by their other businesses. And after more than a decade, they've gotten almost nowhere -- everyone I know who tried Bing (or DDG) goes back to Google for quality. Whereas e.g. Facebook and WhatsApp do have a network effect - you have no use for them unless your friends use them too, so a new contender - no matter how well funded e.g. Google+ - is not useful until critical mass is achieved; and critical mass is not achieved until it is useful. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect