A Theory of Social Networks

I don’t necessarily endorse this, but it’s interesting:

1. Social networks are free, or at least bundled with things like work, family, school and housing.
2. We’d never pay for technology that supports a new network.
3. Facebook’s investors gave us another free network but without being able to make money on the bundle.
4. It therefore takes something from us that we don’t value very much (private information) and sells it to others.
5. The day may come when we regret this.
6. Then again, maybe that information is actually worthless.

Inspired in part by a recent Econtalk.