%% tags : #type/tweets #cat/critique #discipline/technologie %% --- Network effects and the Big Tech story === > by [Cory Doctorow](https://twitter.com/doctorow) > ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1431678697086472194))  ## Highlights - If you took a drink every time an economist used "network effects" to explain why Big Tech is so big, you'd get very, very drunk. To be fair to economists, network effects ARE important to the Big Tech story. 1/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1431678697086472194)) - If you'd like an unrolled version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on https://t.co/iSBh8s9m7q, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: https://t.co/RWxiOhE9Tl 2/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1431678700362231808)) - A system is said to have network effects if it gets better when more people use it. That certainly describes Facebook - you join FB because of the friends that are already there, and then someone else joins because you're there. https://t.co/fNz8Zt88sO 3/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1431678702136426497)) - But network effects are how FB GETS big, not how it STAYS big. Because even though you might join FB to talk to your friends, the reason you stay there - despite surveillance and FB's many abusive tactics - is that leaving FB will cut you off from those friends. 4/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1431678704422252549)) - There's no technical reason you couldn't stay in touch with FB friends without being an FB user. You can switch phone companies or email providers without walking away from the family, community and customers you're connected to. 5/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1431678707333173250)) - FB deliberately engineers its system to block "interoperability" - the ability to plug rival services into its network. Interop would let non-FB users connect with FB users, and make it so FB users don't have to choose between their community and Facebook's abuses. 6/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1431678709132521473)) - The economist's term for this is "switching costs." A "switching cost" is whatever you have to give up to switch between products or services - switching from Audible to a rival platform would cost you all your audiobooks, for example, thanks to Audible's DRM. 7/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1431678711602941956)) - Facebook deliberately engineers its products to have high switching costs so that it can impose more pain on its users without losing them. So long as the pain of staying is less than the pain of leaving, Facebook calculates it can maintain its dominance. 8/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1431678714715119625)) - Network effects are how Facebook attracts users, but switching costs are how it holds them hostage. The higher the switching costs, the bigger the shit sandwich Facebook can force you to eat before you leave. 9/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1431678716875210756)) - That's why interoperability is such a big deal - because it lowers the switching costs. If you can take your apps or friends or files or media with you when you leave a service, then the service has to treat you better, lest you depart. https://t.co/Tw7DPaiiY4 10/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1431678719135866881)) - Now, I've been accusing Facebook of deliberately raising its switching costs for years, based on the obvious external evidence of this conduct. But to be honest, I didn't have any proof that this was going on... ...Until now. 11/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1431678721547649024)) - In its amended antitrust complaint against Facebook, the @FTC draws on the internal communications it compelled Facebook to give up in order to build up a factual record of FB's abuse of switching costs, which go all the way to CEO Mark Zuckerberg. https://t.co/9gIdUU5Twj 12/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1431678723095347200)) - I published a collection of these for @EFF's Deeplinks blog, under the title, "Facebook’s Secret War on Switching Costs." https://t.co/AExLifcBbb 12/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1431678724882067461)) - Here's some highlights: Para 87: Zuckerberg's M&A chief writes to him to say, "imo, photos (along with comprehensive/smart contacts and unified messaging) is perhaps one of the most important ways we can make switching costs very high for users... 13/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1431678727419621377)) - "...if we are where all users’ photos reside because the upoading [sic] (mobile and web), editing, organizing, and sharing features are best in class, will be very tough for a user to switch if they can’t take those photos and associated data/comments with them." 14/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1431678729323900929)) - Translation: "I figured out a way to get our users to eat a VERY large shit sandwich indeed. Just take all their family photos hostage!" 15/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1431678731253280770)) - Para 187: An exec explains how FB is preventing G+ from succeeding: "[P]eople who are big fans of G+ are having a hard time convincing their friends to participate because...switching costs would be high due to friend density on Facebook." 16/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1431678733434327040)) - Translation: Our users would rather be on G+ but we've stopped them because leaving means leaving behind their friends, because we won't interconnect with Google's service. 17/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1431678735250493441)) - Para 212: One of Zuck's execs sends him a memo reading, " if we are where all users’ photos reside . . . will be very tough for a user to switch if they can’t take those photos and associated data/comments with them." There's that shit sandwich again. 18/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1431678737435660293)) - I'm so excited to see this stuff in the FTC complaint - not because it vindicates me (it was obvious that this was going on, though having the receipts is nice), but because it suggests that US antitrust enforcers are homing in on switching costs as an anticompetitive force. 19/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1431678739725774848)) - The problem with the network effects story is that it's a counsel of despair: "Well, this company has attained scale and now there's no way they can lose." That's bullshit. You don't search Altavista with your Cray. 20/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1431678741172817923)) - Network effects inflate services, but low switching costs let the air out again. Interop is the escape valve that keeps big tech firms from sucking up all the oxygen and asphyxiating their rivals. eof/ ([View Tweet](https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1431678742892466181)) --- > links : > references :