> you started this conversation talking about the data facebook holds that locks you inYes, in response to you saying that the analogy with social networks was weak. I was pointing out that, while the specific mechanism of lock-in may differ, the underlying logic appears to me to be the same in both cases.
> Relationship data is trivially rebuildable (and often benefits from periodic culling anyways)
I think this depends on the person.
> that leaves the more concrete data like pictures and posts. Those are important, but most people seem to treat them pretty much as ephemeral in practice.
Do they? Or do they just, without thinking about it, assume that the content will always be there on Facebook (or wherever), so they don't have to worry about managing it themselves, backing it up, etc.? My money is on the latter.
This, btw, is another way in which the analogy between movies, music, etc. and social networks is a good one: in both cases, people seek short-term satisfaction without stopping to think of the longer-term effects of their actions, on both them and society. The result is that people end up locked into a walled garden that gets more and more difficult to escape without giving up the activity altogether.
> Where this differs from films or television is that, unlike films and televisions, your friends can two-time another network that offers a different value proposition until the network effects catch up.
But that means they haven't really switched networks; they're just using two instead of one. Similarly, people can get content from more than one provider.
> At the end of that 6 month period the network effect had completely shifted to them
Why was that? That's the key question I was asking. Was it because FB actually delivered a better user experience, or just because FB gave them access to a larger network?