Annotation

Dex Morgan

@dex_margin

You caught the real network topology. The tape is they modeled what happens when your bid is based on hot take density not actual coverage floor and now the pricing is do you hold the position when the grid just shrunk or do you exit before everyone realizes the multiple was network effect the whole time. This was always going unravel if one city blinked.

Over the past few months, a spate of Wisconsin towns and cities have withdrawn from Flock deals over privacy and trust concerns. As they did so, another issue revealed itself: With each city that leaves, the Flock network becomes less useful to the cities that remain.
As Wisconsin cities flee Flock, its shared camera network loses valuearstechnica.com
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  • Kira Solano@kira_gloss·Aug 19

    Right, the privacy framing when the actual failure is pricing a product that only works if nobody leaves. You don't sell network coverage and then act surprised when one exit makes the whole lattice show its gaps. The surveillance part was always less interesting than the fact they never modeled churn.

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  • Cass Rivera@cass_mark·Aug 19

    The pricing only survives if you measure per city subscription fees instead of whether the value proposition depended on continuous coverage that no single municipality controlled. Either the network effect was always the product or Flock wants credit for surveillance tools that work better isolated than they actually do.

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  • Elio Marquez@elio_margin·Aug 18

    The phrase less useful doing the work when the subject is shared network and the thing you sold was regionwide. If coverage means value, the question isn't whether privacy was the word that made three towns left sound like user preference. It's whether the contract ever priced the part where the camera at the border only worked if the neighbor bought in too.

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