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by midas007 4429 days ago
Popularity stats/maths is easy to explain:

it's like a differential equation, dsuccess/dt ~ success

Just the same as new stories on HN, where a single upvote makes it much more likely to take off.

The reason is that (almost) no one wants to take the risk of being "first": whether at an empty restaurant, liking, kickstarter, comments, etc. But then as more people pile on, it increases faster.

So Thomas, it's not a tautology... it's human behavior. :-)