Reed's Law was published by David P. Reed of MIT in 1999. While Reed acknowledged that **"many kinds of value grow proportionally to network size"** and that some grow as a proportion to the square of network size, he suggested that **"group-forming networks**" that allow for the formation of _clusters_ (as described above) scale value even faster than other networks. Group-forming networks, according to Reed, increase in value a rate of 2^N, where _N_ is the total number of nodes on the network. The reason why Reed suggested a formula of 2^N instead of N^2 is because the number of possible groups within a network that "supports easy group communication" is much higher than 1, so that the total number of connections in the network (the network density) is not just a function of the total number of nodes (N2). In reality it's a function of the total number of nodes _plus_ the total number of possible sub-groupings or clusters, which scales at a much faster rate with the addition of more users to the network. ![[Pasted image 20211031114508.png]] Since most online networks allow for the formation of clusters, they will likely behave at least somewhat as Reed's Law suggests and grow in value at a much faster rate than either [[Metcalfe's Law]] or [[Sarnoff's Law]] suggest. #mentalmodel