Metcalfe's law [SEP] named after
Metcalfe's law
Metcalfe's law states the effect of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users
of the system ("n"). First formulated in this form by George Gilder in 1993, and attributed to Robert Metcalfe in regard to Ethernet, Metcalfe's law was originally presented, c. 1980, not in terms of users, but rather of "compatible communicating devices" (for example, fax machines, telephones, etc.). Only later with the globalization of the
Law differs from Metcalfe's law, Reed's law and other concepts that proposed that the value of a network was based purely on the size of the network, and in Metcalfe's law, one other variable. 
According to Rod Beckstrom, the most significant improvement when using Beckstrom's Law instead of Metcalfe's Law, is the applicability to current experiences on the Internet. Metcalfe's Law does not account for service degradation due to a high number of users or bad actors who steal value from the network. 
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