Reed's Law of the Pack states:
the utility of large networks, particularly social networks, can scale exponentially with the size of the network.
So its a refined version of Metcalf's law, that highlights the value of subgroups.The reason for this is that the number of possible sub-groups of network participants is 2N − N − 1, where N is the number of participants. This grows much more rapidly than either
- the number of participants, N, or
...so that even if the utility of groups available to be joined is very small on a peer-group basis, eventually the network effect of potential group membership can dominate the overall economics of the system.
- the number of possible pair connections, N(N − 1)/2 (which follows Metcalfe's law).
But OTOH, Andrew Odlyzko disagrees, and claims network value grows like a logarithmic Meltcalf Law:
The fundamental flaw underlying both Metcalfe's and Reed's laws is in the assignment of equal value to all connections or all groups.Lots more on Value Networks at wikipedia.
