Signalling a Race against Time

This article was first published in Deccan Herald. Views are personal.As a child of the nineties, I have had the privilege of watching the internet evolve over the ages. I remember rushing back from school and throwing away my bag to switch on the computer and the internet. Back in the day, you had to fire up the internet through a landline connection. And while you were online, if someone wanted to use the landline, the internet connection would be disrupted. But boy was all of it worth it. I would have gone anywhere on the internet (but mostly stayed at Orkut) to chat with my friends.‘Network effects’ made Orkut the place for me, just as they make social media apps like WhatsApp popular today. The basic idea behind network effects is that you are on WhatsApp because your friends are on it, and your friends are on it because their friends (and you) are on it. It’s a simple principle and one that is likely going to be the downfall of Signal.