[cristiantincu]

> Building a social network is not easy. Social networks have value proportional to their size, so participants aren’t motivated to join new social networks which aren’t already large. It’s a paradox where if people haven’t already joined, people aren’t motivated to join.

Value is relative. For stakeholders, value is indeed given by the network’s size. For users (participants), it’s very debatable whether size equals value. The author seems to be mistaking the two perspectives for a single one. No paradox here.

[abdullahkhalids]

Not really. I will only want to join a social network if a lot of my friends are already on it. The fewer of my friends on it, the lower the value I get out of using the service (cetris paribus of course).