Thread: 100 million reasons to use Skype
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benny1967 is offline benny1967
2007-07-08 , 08:54
Posts: 3,790 | Thanked: 5,718 times | Joined on Mar 2006 @ Vienna, Austria
#14
Originally Posted by RogerS View Post
Hm-m. I don't think we're on the same page here.

The transcript of that talk includes this:
In almost any comparison you can think of, if there are two competing technologies, one of which has visible benefits from network effects, and the other of which doesn't, the one with the visible benefits from network effects is the one that's going to win. This is not inherently evil; it's also not inherently good. It does have unambiguous benefits. The network effect provides the payoff which helps induce us as a society to make choices when we need to.
If Skype has 20 times as many users as Google Talk or Gizmo, it's way more than 20 times as useful to, um, use it. I can't think of any economic analysis that indicates rationale choice of benefits is lemming-like.

Perhaps you're mistaking me for one of those guys who camped out for 24 hours in order to buy an iPhone and two-year AT&T contract.
RogerS, IMHO you're oversimplifying things here. You assume that there is one single criterion when you make a choice between technologies like SIP, Jabber/Jingle or Skype (with Skype being more of a business model than a technology). This is wrong. From a purely economic point of view, what could you try to check before registering?
  • Cost (monthly? per call? how much?)
  • Features (Call in? Landlines? Mobiles?)
  • Available in your country? (Like: Do I get a *local* number for call-in?)
  • Customer service?
  • "Network effect" (what you say is important: how many existing contacts do I reach?)
  • Reliability?
  • Security?
  • Compatibility with existing infrastructure?
  • Choice? (Can you keep the technology but switch the provider?)
These are only a few that come to my mind, there are probably more. The network effect is only one of them.

When I personally think of some soon-to-be Skype-users as lemmings its because I cant help the feeling they never even think of any of those economic, rational points. There's one single criterion for them: If all the others have it, it must be good. Period. They don't know the alternatives nor do they care to learn. They don't really know if any of their friends uses Skype or anything else - they tend to check this afterwards. All they have to base their decisions on is that Skype happens to be in the media so often and everyone talks about it.

(Of course, some make they choice considering most of the points given above and maybe even more; if they choose Skype then, there's no reason calling them lemmings )

Another thing that comes into play here and that cannot be measured on an economic scale is the moral aspect. People want to be good. They separate waste, they donate, they help young mothers with strollers climb the stairs... yes, they do. Some of us realize that proprietary technologies like Skype (Flash, *.doc-Files, ...) are as bad as pollution and simply refuse to support them for this one reason, even if it might contradict their own economic interests. There are people who refuse to share MP3 files and insist on OGG vorbis instead. And there are those who refuse to register with Skype and insist the other person registers with a SIP or jabber/Jingle based account.

Putting all this together, I think the "network effect" is simply overestimated. For the lemmings, its not the network that counts but Skypes PR in the media. And for all the ohers, there's so many things to consider that the network effect is just one of many.