Network Effects, Trust, and Well‑Being

Trust grows much like a network effect: the more people engage in it, the greater the payoff for everyone involved. Feedback, reciprocity, and reputation systems are the social equivalents of economic and technological mechanisms we study in platform markets. For antitrust aficionados, this perspective invites a shift. We spend our professional lives dissecting how networks entrench power and shape markets, but the same tools can illuminate how cooperation and well-being can be increased within