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Reed's law is the assertion of David P. Reed that the utility of large networks, particularly social networks, can scale exponentially with the size of the network.
The reason for this is that the number of possible sub-groups of network participants is , where is the number of participants. This grows much more rapidly than either
- the number of participants, , or
- the number of possible pair connections, (which follows Metcalfe's law)
Based on the observation, that Reed's law does not addresses the important factors of moderation and anonymity on the internet "The Hungarian extension" states:
The theoretical value of an internet based communication network is not purely based on the 2^N mathematical fact as per the Reed's original law suggest, but something higher or lower depending on other factors following this [draft] formula
2^(N+1) +/- M + L
Where N is the number of human participants
N x 2 is the number of known and unknown identities
M is the cost or benefit of moderation
and L is an element for luck and other factors
more details on this suggested extension and modifcation are here:See also
External links
A suggested extension / modification states:
