Platforms can be difficult to understand and conceptualize. Humor can help; so can illustration, and imagination. Here is how I imagine one platform that's been significant in my life, but that I find difficult to leave due to network effects.

Welcome to the boarding area for Flight 100 here on Air Facebook.

We will begin boarding with our Covert Research Class customers. Please occupy your hiding places in the restrooms and overhead compartments.

We now invite customers with 10,000 or more verified social connections to board. For your convenience your seats are equipped with face filtering monitors that obscure your natural appearance while projecting your optimized video image out to the cabin. Also note that beneath your seats we offer trolls to mock your real life appearance.

Next we would like to welcome all news purveyors aboard this flight. Please be sure to show documentation of your credentials to the attendants as you board. Forgot your credentials? Our credential-printing kiosks are available throughout the terminal for a negotiable fee, and we offer discounted bulk services in Russian, Macedonian, and low-literacy English.

We’d like to extend a special welcome to the families aboard this flight. For your convenience we have automated your check in process. Relax as our face tagging systems detect your names, ages, political preferences, employment histories, bank information, medical records, dietary habits, shoe sizes, marital status indicators, relationship difficulties, battles with alcoholism, personality types according to the Meyers Briggs test, and high scores in Candy Crush.

All remaining individuals on this flight are now welcome aboard. Please be seated in sections populated with acquaintances from your past including high school classmates, ex-lovers, and relatives who despise the social causes you support. To make your flight together more comfortable, our in-flight magazine has been stocked with inspirational quotes you can exchange with your neighbors or simply hide your hand behind as you flip them the bird.

As you find your seats, please take note if you are sitting in an exit row. This is the row from which you are invited to depart the aircraft and plummet to social obscurity at any time. Please note you will always be welcome again on Air Facebook and all of your information will be retained. Any Exit row ticket holder who is an introvert should also alert the flight attendants so you can be paraded toward a more crowded row from which it is harder to escape.

We’d like all of our customers to know that if you need anything during your flight, rest assured we already know about it and are using it to our advantage. On behalf of Air Facebook...Welcome Aboard.

platform

An ecosystem that connects people and companies while retaining control over the terms of these connections and ownership of connection byproducts such as data.

network effects

the more the platform is used, the more valuable it is - because the more likely that platform is where we go to interact with family, or friends, or customers, or all of these

Try to conceptualize a platform that you use. Make it a place, familiar or imaginary. How is it organized? Who is there? How are they behaving?