Reed's law

As a (third ) Reed 's law the assertion of the Internet pioneer David P. Reed is known that the utility of large networks increases exponentially with their size. This is especially true for social networks.

The reason for this is that the number of possible subsets is. Here, N denotes the number of participants.

This number is increasing faster than

The number of participants N
The number of possible pairs of connections ( sometimes referred to as Metcalfesches Act) referred.

Although the benefits of available groups per group is quite small, the crosslinking effect of a possible group membership can dominate the overall economics of a system.

There are two other, less well-known Reedsche laws with different content. After reading this article by Reed describes his third law.