Quotes About Metcalfe's Law

Metcalfe's law: the value of a network as a whole is proportional to the square of the number of participants. In other words, the more people in the network, the more valuable the network.

Metcalfe's law: the value of a network as a whole is proportional to the square of the number of participants.

Growth was running at 40 percent per month, but what was more impressive was the motor that was driving it. Unlike Yahoo, which was pouring money into marketing, eBay's marketing budget was zero. Its hectic expansion was instead propelled by Metcalfe's law: as the size of its auction network grew, its value rose exponentially. The more sellers listed stuff on eBay, the more bargain hunters were drawn to the site; the more buyers there were, the more sellers turned to it.

The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in 'Metcalfe's law'—which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants—becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's.