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   Josh Braun (josh@sciences.social)'s status on Sunday, 27-Nov-2022 05:49:26 JST Josh Braun

   I've seen plenty of discussions in recent days over the network structure of Mastodon and whether it can remain decentralized as large commercial players begin taking an interest in the fediverse. I am neither an engineer nor an economist, but I do research the way media and information get distributed and I have some thoughts on this. A thread…

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     Josh Braun (josh@sciences.social)'s status on Sunday, 27-Nov-2022 06:05:54 JST Josh Braun

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     That chart may look familiar, because it's largely identical to the one people commonly use to describe "Metcalfe's Law" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law). The difference is that Metcalfe's Law is about the social benefits of a communication's network—how it's utility to end users increases exponentially as it scales. What I'm saying here—and what network operators have long realized—is that the *costs* of operating the network infrastructure also scale exponentially as it grows. 6/

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     Josh Braun (josh@sciences.social)'s status on Sunday, 27-Nov-2022 06:05:55 JST Josh Braun

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     If you run a telephone network, on the other hand, your costs go up exponentially as you sign up new subscribers. That's because the infrastructure necessary to connect all these people scales geometrically. To see what I mean, take a look at these stills from "The Far Sound," and old film about the Bell system: 5/

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     Josh Braun (josh@sciences.social)'s status on Sunday, 27-Nov-2022 06:05:56 JST Josh Braun

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     To wit, if you run a traditional business where you make a product—ice cream, say—economies of scale work in your favor. As you produce more ice cream, you can drive down the production cost per unit by negotiating better rates with your suppliers, who'll charge you less for milk and sugar if they know you're going to buy in bulk. 4/

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     Josh Braun (josh@sciences.social)'s status on Sunday, 27-Nov-2022 06:05:57 JST Josh Braun

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     To start with, consider the physical infrastructure of older point-to-point communication networks like the telegraph and telephone. Economies of scale for these networks work in an entirely different fashion than in industries, like retail or manufacturing, that come most readily to mind when considering how markets work. 3/

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     Josh Braun (josh@sciences.social)'s status on Sunday, 27-Nov-2022 06:05:59 JST Josh Braun

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     This is a really nice observation. While it's true that the research on concentration in new media is laggy, I'd suggest it's useful here to look to the political economy and material realities of previous communication systems. In particular, there are a number of important dynamics that have historically tended to shape the organization of telecommunication networks that have interesting implications for Mastodon. 2/

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     Josh Braun (josh@sciences.social)'s status on Sunday, 27-Nov-2022 06:06:00 JST Josh Braun

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     Matthew Hindman, in his book "The Internet Trap" <http://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/s13236.pdf>, notes that most research on the internet has focused on its supposedly decentralized nature, leaving us with little language to really grapple with the concentrated, oligopolistic state of today's online economy, where the vast majority of attention and revenue accrue to a tiny number of companies. 1/