Categorise the network effects of three products you use regularly. Which are direct, indirect, data, or protocol network effects? Does the product’s architecture reflect the specific type of effect it has?
The chapter describes the cold-start problem as a technical and product challenge simultaneously. For a product you are working on, identify what single-player value it provides before network density is achieved. Is that value sufficient to attract the first users?
Fanout at scale is a fundamental challenge for direct-network-effect products. Describe the fanout architecture you would design for a social platform where some users have ten million followers and most users have fewer than one hundred.
A competitor launches a product in your market with a technically superior algorithm but a smaller user base. Under what conditions does the data network effect protect your product against this competition? Under what conditions does it not?