The Network Effects Manual: 16 Different Network Effects (and counting)

NFX presents a network effects map and manual covering 16 types of network effects, which it calls the strongest form of defensibility in the digital world. Its three-year study finds that network effects are responsible for 70% of the value created by tech companies since 1994. The manual traces the concept to AT&T chairman Theodore Vail's 1908 annual report, then covers Robert Metcalfe's law that network value scales with users squared and David Reed's 2001 argument that it scales exponentially.