You might look at a product and think its network doesn’t have sides. Sometimes this is referred to in the industry as one-sided networks, like messaging apps and social networks. But even in these cases, there are active, extroverted users who initiate conversations and organize get-togethers, and there are those who don’t. Nearly every network has them, and the hard side must all be happy for the network to function. When they work, they generate what academics often call “cross-side network effects”—when more users in one side of the network benefits the other side of the network.
