repost from tweet thread here
One of my goto analogies: there’s a lot of parallels between the work that goes into managing a large social platform and setting the fiscal policy of a medium sized country.
- Wealth -> reach/amplification of message. Follower count. (though in the algorithm/TikTok era, follower count is less and less important)
- Gini coefficient/wealth inequality -> what’s the difference between the folks who have no reach vs folks with large reach - and how easy is it for someone to climb up that chart.
- Status signaling -> follower count, engagement counts, friend counts,…
- Transferring wealth -> Not a clean analogy but how does one user endorse, amplify someone else. For example sharing, liking, etc.
- Inflation -> what the platform does to make some currency valuable and not valuable. For example Linkedin endorsements have experienced hyper-inflation and it is pretty meaningless to endorse someone now.
These are not perfect parallels but close enough that I think they form useful abstractions to talk through product changes and issues in social media.