You're absolutely right. I find it incredibly frustrating that network effects and game theory mean we're stuck with sub-optimal solutions to problems just because "everybody else uses it". Twitter thread long-posts are just one example.
I would love to see some proposals for legislation designed to mitigate user-base monopolies. Products should be competing on features, price, and performance; not on who happened to acquire the most users first.
Facebook, Twitter, Slack, Office, iMessages, etc. are just a few examples of products that are market leaders not because of the quality of their product, but because they happened to capture large enough user bases to spur network-based growth.
I have no idea what this legislation would actually look like (or how disastrous the unintended effects would be), but at first blush I'm imagining something along the lines of compulsory interoperability requirements. The devil is in the details of course...
You're absolutely right. I find it incredibly frustrating that network effects and game theory mean we're stuck with sub-optimal solutions to problems just because "everybody else uses it". Twitter thread long-posts are just one example.
I would love to see some proposals for legislation designed to mitigate user-base monopolies. Products should be competing on features, price, and performance; not on who happened to acquire the most users first.
Facebook, Twitter, Slack, Office, iMessages, etc. are just a few examples of products that are market leaders not because of the quality of their product, but because they happened to capture large enough user bases to spur network-based growth.
I have no idea what this legislation would actually look like (or how disastrous the unintended effects would be), but at first blush I'm imagining something along the lines of compulsory interoperability requirements. The devil is in the details of course...