Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
[...]
Hence the anecdotes such as QWERTY, Betamax are attacked as if they were the best evidence, the sole evidence even for network effects. This is historical revisionism in the service of dogmatic ideology.
Positive feedback exists, get over it.
Surely the classic network effect is railway gauge?
And about as hard to deny as the sun rising in the east.
Ken
The crank tank probably dismisses it as being determined mainly by government regulation. Most railway acts had a guage clause. However in the UK the vastly superior broad guage was converted to narrow precisely because of network effects. The crank tank is asking me to distinguish between 'path dependence' (a term I have not used) and 'network externalities'. This is clearly a tactical ploy to try to move the argument to their definitions. It is an Oxford Union debating trick for folk with a weak cause. The original argument was addressed to a public audience. If the crank tank 'Independent Institute' cannot justify their claim in public language they are clearly frauds and should retreat to the house litterature they publish their whacky theories in. The claim the economic effects can only be understood by experts in the field is made to foreclose debate. They want to claim that you and me and everyone on the list that does not agree with them do so out of ignorance. Oh by the way they get to decide who is an expert. The Institute for Historical Reform and the Creationism Study Institute use the same tactic. Phill