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You need to look at it the other way - it's really a two-headed network effect: there are two classes of users, drivers and riders. The more drivers they have
by potatolicious 12y ago
You need to look at it the other way - it's really a two-headed network effect: there are two classes of users, drivers and riders.
The more drivers they have the more useful it is to riders. There more riders they have the more useful it is to drivers.
Whether this is sufficiently far from the original meaning of "network effect" that we need another name for it, maybe. Given how obvious this effect is, is there an existing name already for it?
This isn't particularly new nor unique to technology. This is the entrenching effect you see in all exchanges - the stock exchange, eBay, etc... any clearing house for sellers and buyers to meet will benefit from this effect.
I don't think "mindshare" is the right word for this.
- ForHackernews 12y ago> Given how obvious this effect is, is there an existing name already for it? It's a marketplace. As a seller, and a buyer, you generally benefit from going to a larger marketplace. But that analogy breaks down for ride-sharing because there's nothing preventing drivers from being simultaneously available on multiple ridesharing services, and it's trivially easy to switch between them. So there isn't any true isolation between different services, and it makes more sense to think of them as part of a single, larger ride-sharing marketplace.