Cold Start Problem & Big Tech Achilles’ Heel: What Destroys Network Effects?
If you haven’t already read Andrew Chen’s book, The Cold Start Problem, it’s okay. I’ve actually just begun to read the book myself, as it was recommended to me by someone in the self sovereign identity space. Thank you to Dan @ Product Intuition for the recommendation!
While the term network effect is probably overused in some tech circles, what caught my attention was Andrew’s statement on page 48, where he writes,
“I look at a series of case studies as major products hit periods of slowing growth: from the implosion of Usenet discussion groups in the early days of the internet, to eBay’s slowing US business, to the origins of Nigerian prince scams. In each of these examples, sometimes they are easily dealt with and sometimes they destroy the network over time. The solutions are difficult — a successful product inherently comes with various degrees of spam and trolls. These are problems to be managed, not fully solved.”
The portions of the text were bolded because they stood out to me. Starting with “sometimes they destroy the network over time” and ending with “these are problems to be managed, not fully solved” — these statements are an admission that in the current state of big tech networks, whether that is Google, Meta, Microsoft, TikTok, WeChat, LinkedIn, or any other tech platform, that these networks have hit a ceiling due to bad user experiences involving fraud, lack of identity control, authentication, privacy issues, and lack of user control over their data.
Being scammed, spammed, phished, and tricked eventually has its consequences ten-fold. The lack of care about user sovereignty and control can destroy user loyalty, and eventually the network itself.
Despite the fact that Andrew says “sometimes they destroy the network over time,” he basically also throws his hands up in the air and says, “These are problems are to be managed, not fully solved.” He seems to be saying that despite this huge threat of fraud and lack of identity authentication within these networks that we should not aim to solve the problem, but only casually manage it.
However, what if there was a way to granularly manage and solve the lack of identity authentication and fraud risks? Wouldn’t that help prevent the risk of network destruction and decay over time and restore user loyalty and experience?
The idea of only managing the problem and not aiming to solve it seems to be the Achilles heel of the Big Tech industry. The other Achilles heel is the fact that users’ data are in the control of these companies and data brokers. Over time, users also grow bored with the status quo of having their data owned and trafficked 24/7, even if they signed the terms and conditions and implicitly agreed to it.
The passing of GDPR and CCPA in the past few years has enabled users to take more control over their data, yet a convenient mechanism and platform that caters to user’s rights of owning and controlling their data is completely lacking. The problem directly affects user experiences and the Tech applications they are using, as users’ identities and data are at risk of being trafficked and stolen every time they go online.
To sum up, The FISE Platform, if fully funded with an expanded team to scale the product, could help both Big Tech applications and their users maintain these networks by managing and solving the fraud and lack of identity authentication and data permissions currently inherent in each digital interaction.
If you follow me on LinkedIn, I’m sure you’ve seen some of my posts which have criticized Big Technology companies’ lack of care when it comes to managing and solving the problem of fraud and lack of identity authentication, which leads to identity theft in many cases. This lack of care causes users to lose trust and have bad experiences with Big Tech applications and any current internet application, especially if they become identity theft victims.
This lack of care then sends the user into a vortex of spending months and years, as well as money, repatriating and remediating their digital identity, which may never be completely fixed after the fact — due to the endless selling, reselling, sharing of users’ data without their explicit permission or control.
We all know and see that Big Technology companies have contributed some amazing, convenient applications that have helped speed up efficiency and business processes in our personal and professional lives.
However, there also comes a time, where reality sets in, and improvements need to be made, otherwise these applications start to degrade, decay, and provide bad user experiences. This is covered on page 47–48, in the Cold Start Problem, where Andrew writes about the fourth stage, Hitting the Ceiling.
This fourth stage of Hitting the Ceiling and thereby risking the destruction of networks and their effects has been happening for years. What is their answer? Not to fix it, but to trust in AI. AI is not inherently evil — however, by purposely not managing or solving the fraud and lack of identity authentication problem — AI has already degenerated into the creation of deepfake identification cards, causing the user more user heartache and bad experiences online.
It is important for Andrew Chen and his readers to understand that if networks and their effects are to be maintained and sustained from a user experience and compliance point of view (GDPR / CCPA), these critical problems of fraud and lack of identity authentication are to be managed AND solved, not just casually managed, as has been the status quo for many years.
FISE Technologies’ platform FISE Portal helps manage and solve problems of fraud and lack of identity authentication along with lack of data control. Our platform is almost finished, and at the end of 2023, prospective customers appeared. However, in order to finish, we need more team members and funding. Ask yourself if it’s time to face the need for improvement and resolution, instead of letting these problems potentially “destroy the network over time,” as Andrew says.
Furthermore, Andrew alludes to only managing the problem, because it is a difficult problem to solve; as he says “the solutions are difficult.” And indeed they are. We at FISE have been working on these solutions for 7 years, since 2017 and have witnessed the growing relevance for our product due to the billions of dollars and time spent on fines, productivity lost, lack of identity authentication, lack of user ability to self-authenticate and sign off on their own recognizance, increasing threats to inalienable rights to privacy, freedom of speech, as well as threats to the 5th Amendment, due to AI surveillance on people’s thoughts. The FISE solution is elegant on the surface, yet complex under the hood.
If you’ve ever thought of something without typing anything into your phone, yet your phone then sends advertisements on the subject you just thought about, that is AI surveillance, and a direct intrusion on your mental privacy, which means your 5th Amendment rights are already compromised.
However, if you had control over your data and the AI surveillance, you would then retain your 5th Amendment rights. It has been said many times that privacy and freedom are not free, and it does take effort, time, and money to solve any kind of problem. Another question to ask yourself is would you rather sacrifice your privacy and freedom for convenience, which gives power to AI without your control over it? Or would you rather do something about it, and preserve your privacy and freedom, without harming AI development, but simply ensuring that you have control over your data and whether or not AI is surveilling you in the confines of your mental space?
It is tempting to cave into convenience and easy money. This is what Big Technology companies have been doing for many years. However if you observe what is happening in society, there is not only a loss of privacy and freedom, there is a breakdown of civility, critical thinking, respect, physical health, and mental health. And when these things are lost, think about whether it was still worthwhile to cave in to convenience and easy money. And think about the responsibility that you and your soul will bear because you ignored the problem, and wanted to only casually manage it, instead of continuing to improve on the solution, FISE Tech’s portable Web2 and Web3 infrastructure for identity and data.
I hope these thoughts are music to your conscience, that part of you that does care about maintaining civility, critical thinking, respect, physical health, and mental health. If any part of you wishes to run away from the information in this article — that is your shadow side which lives in fear and desperation, despite the amount of money or assets you may or may not have.
In these interesting, dark times, you can choose for yourself actions that you would be proud of when looking back on your life, and whether or not you did the right thing. My writings might sting a little, but so does good medicine and truth. If anything, truth and self sovereignty sets you free. So follow the truth and self sovereignty, and find freedom in it. Fear is an illusion, and is manufactured by those who serve their shadow. It is a choice to live in truth and self sovererignty or to live in fear in an enslaved mindset. Which will you choose?
If you choose truth and self-sovereignty, please reach out to me at nara@fiseportal.com, and tell me how you can contribute to the FISE team’s efforts. It could be with marketing, engineering, business development, funding, or just to say hello and recognize the importance of the FISE Platform for users and technology companies, and enterprises in general.
In this way, Big Tech companies and enterprises can be customers of the FISE Platform, which ensures their networks and effects are maintained and sustained by managing AND solving the fraud and lack of identity authentication, sovereignty, and data control that negatively affect the user experience and user satisfaction, in addition to being out of compliance with GDPR and CCPA.
The FISE Platform is hosted in a decentralized, non-censorable manner, which means that if the ICANN censor-controlled internet goes down, the FISE Platform persists, and so does its users and entity customers. Currently, if the ICANN censor-controlled internet goes down, there is no resiliency built in for any of the major applications or their users. In this way, the FISE Platform also closes the gap of resiliency deficiency.
Onwards & Upwards!
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💰 Donate $2+ towards building your digital sovereignty: https://opencollective.com/fise-tech-collective
Deck: http://tinyurl.com/FISETech
Technical Paper: https://fiseportal.com/FISE-White-Paper.pdf
Privacy Policy: https://fiseportal.com/privacy-policy.html
Many thanks to Andrew Chen for writing The Cold Start Problem and sharing his expert thoughts on the current state of network effects, which inspired me to write this post. I hope we all continue to grow and learn from each other’s writings and thoughts, and that all feedback can be taken from a positive perspective for the good of the whole.
Happy Lunar New Year 2024,
