The Register - There are still crypto reg's...

Declan McCullagh declan at well.com
Mon Feb 5 06:48:51 PST 2001


On Thu, Feb 01, 2001 at 04:08:16PM -0800, Ray Dillinger wrote:
> ObCryptoStuff; this same kind of "critical mass" phenomenon 
> affects lots and lots of the stuff we're looking at.  Freenet, 
> Mojo Nation, Napster, Gnutella, Digital Cash, etc, even PGP and 
> GPG - All have a value that depends directly on how many other 
> people are using them. If they don't grow beyond a certain 
> threshold size, they remain less useful than the disk space they 
> occupy.  But where is the threshold and when is it passed? 

This is a close cousin of what economists call network effects. As 
an area of study, it has received fairly extensive scrutiny.

Me, I like what Stan Liebowitz and Stephen Margolis have written
about temporary monopolies.

More on both subjects:
http://www.politechbot.com/p-00607.html

-Declan





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